Feature: Making Games Talk Back

Author: by Staff

In Gamasutra's latest feature, Telltale Games coder Bruce Wilcox notes that the future of games lies in natural language inputs and explores different approaches to offering players a text interface. Wilcox's ChatScript language drove the bot Suzette -- "pictured" left -- which won the 2010 Loebner competition by fooling a judge into thinking it was human and is working toward a solution to problems that have confounded natural language processing attempts. In the feature, Wilcox extensively details the thinking behind ChatScript, as well as diving into competing languages AIML and the language which drives Facade. Despite ChatScript's success, he thinks the language is "only a better start" for the development of effective natural language interpretation in games. Natural language input is tough for developers to work with, writes Wilcox, "But speech is a coming interface. It solves input issues on small devices as well as being more appropriate than a mouse or controller for some games." "Full natural language games are only a matter of time," he concludes, before comparing and contrasting advanced technologies. Read the full, highly-detailed feature, Beyond Facade: Pattern Matching for Natural Language Applications, live now on Gamasutra.