This paper explores the impact that spontaneous independent NPC dialogues have upon the player experience within a RPG. The study makes use of adjacent established research where dialogue is concerned as a launching point as spontaneous NPC dialogue has not been directly researched. The tests consisted of a playthrough of a two-part prototype. The first part had spontaneous independent NPC dialogue and the second part was used as a control part. While playing through the artefact participants voiced their thoughts and feelings concerning the prototype. With that and an interview, we measured the amount that the dialogue form used added or detracted from the participant’s experience. The dialogue was overall met in a positive manner from participants. However, a small study as this cannot conclusively state that spontaneous independent NPC dialogues are a boon to the RPG experience.

Planners are well developed tools in computer science, but their role is rather limited in games. We decided to test the possibilities of writing such a game around them. Proving that freely available, general purpose planning systems are worthy alternatives to custom made solutions could open a new path to small developers and popularize a new kind of gameplay powered by these tools. We attempted to exploit planners in two roles, in the development, to partially automate the level design process; and in the gameplay as a decision making tool for the acting agents. Our program is a puzzle game, more precisely an anticipation game, where the player has to foresee the future actions of the acting agents, then discover the pitfalls where they are heading. Using this knowledge he can modify their environment and force them to a desired outcome. A part of our program is a generator of such game challenges. We came to a conclusion that within some limitations planners are capable of creating believable agent behavior and while not all decisions can be handed over to the planning systems, they can lighten the task of the level designer.