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Trigger Happy
184
What a huge challenge for programmers. But the
results would be worth it. It’s all very well to try to
script every possible interaction, but then—as we have
seen—the game’s story engineer has to write an awful
lot to approach any semblance of interactivity. The
artificial intelligence algorithms that are present
embryonically in Outcast, however, while being very
hard to set up initially, result thereafter in interesting
and believable behavior “for free.” The videogame
designer, like a deity, sets up laws of behavior for his
creatures, and then lets the processor do all the
calculation to create the actual behavior at any given
point in the game. Algorithmic processes solve our
problem of storytelling data intensiveness at a stroke.
In a certain crude sense, this has been the case for a
long time. For instance, the enemy machines in
Robotron are programmed with simple movement
algorithms that tell them either to hunt down the player
or go straight for the other humans on screen. But now
that such movement rules are being combined with
simulations of curiosity or fear, and if in the future they
may even be accompanied by rules for communication,
the illusion of other “life” in the gameworld will be
vastly enhanced.