Some of the GaLA partners have published an article describing an architecture for a dialogue management to be employed in serious games for natural language interaction with nonplayer characters. The aim is to improve the learning experience by enhancing the immersiveness felt by the player. The system is implemented in a Service Oriented Architecture perspective and it exposes its functionalities through Web services. It also provides an easy to use authoring tool, which allows cultural heritage experts to define the character’s knowledge without the need for learning a scripting language. We tested the system by embedding it in a simple serious game, where the user could interact with the virtual representation of a XVI century Geneoese artist, Luca Cambiaso, in order to acquire knowledge about his life and artworks. The early lab test results revealed good usability and user engagement. Tests also showed that the system is a good didactic tool, since players demonstrated a similar level of knowledge acquisition to that achieved by reading a text.
Daniele Mori, Riccardo Berta, Alessandro De Gloria, Valentina Fiore, and Lauto Magnani. 2013. An easy to author dialogue management system for serious games. J. Comput. Cult. Herit. 6, 2, Article 10 (May 2013), 15 pages.