Why Are We Like This?: The AI Architecture of a Co-Creative Storytelling Game

We present Why Are We Like This? (WAWLT), a mixed-initiative, co-creative storytelling game in which two players develop a story transcript by selecting and editing actions to perform and narrativize in an ongoing simulation. In this paper, we lay out the major technical features of WAWLT’s AI architecture—including story sifting via Datalog queries, social simulation, action suggestions, and player-specified but system-understandable author goals—and discuss how these features work together to produce a play experience that facilitates player creativity.