December 3, 2004
Emergent Behaviorists
A recent Gamasutra article reminds me that there’s actually quite a few small, under-the-radar startups or commercial groups out there that you may have never heard of, who are attempting to tackle interactive character and/or story in some form or fashion. Some groups are new, some have been around for a while; some are just one or two people, some have reasonably large teams of people (i.e, more than 2). Some have external funding, some are self-funded, some have no funding, or have already used it up; some are building polished products or freeware, some are building tools and technology. They’re all worth keeping tabs on.
Here’s the ones I know of, in no particular order:
Ingeeni
Cecropia
Haptek
Telltale Games
Playspace
Zoesis
Doublefine
Nearlife
Ai Research
Virtual Personalities
Interactive Drama, Inc.
Extempo
Creature Labs
A.L.I.C.E.
Artificial Life
Neon AI / Emotion AI
Realtime Drama
Erasmatazz
InteractiveStory.net (now Procedural Arts, as of July 2005)
A few I know of that have fallen away, or at least their webpages have: Improv Technologies, 3DMe, Protozoa.
There’s also several AI middleware companies offering more general tools.
Ingeeni has a new demo that’s pretty bizarre and kind of cool. Haptek’s stuff is very impressive — definitely try their stuff out. Zoesis has created a fancier Pearl Demon demo they (er, we) showed at last year’s Experimental Games Workshop at GDC, that has yet to be put online.
Anyone know of other little-known groups focused on interactive character/story, who have a least something of a commercial bent?
Updates, from the comments below:
Oddcast
MediaSemantics
Malibu Artifactual Intelligence Works
Totem Entertainment
AndroidWorld
Clone3D
Online Alchemy
Multiversal Entertainment
Digital Drama Studios
December 4th, 2004 at 6:20 pm
Oddcast has some stuff out at oddcast.com and Media Semantics as well mediasemantics.com
December 5th, 2004 at 11:08 pm
Thanks, George. I’ll add these and any other below-the-radar groups people write in with that qualify to the aforementioned criteria, as updates to the main post.
I was going to add a new group I found, aiagentz.com, but those “characters” don’t seem to have any art / entertainment / aesthetic aspect to them, so I’ll leave them off the list.
I will add Malibu Artifactual Intelligence Works, a company founded by the creator of one of the original chatterbots, PARRY, Ken Colby, although I believe he died a few years ago, so I don’t know what’s happening with the company.
I’ll add Totem Entertainment, not worksafe.
Also, AndroidWorld! Whoa…
December 9th, 2004 at 11:36 am
Check out this: http://clone3d.com
It uses the Haptek player and ALICE AI
June 11th, 2005 at 10:03 pm
Here’s another one: Online Alchemy
July 22nd, 2005 at 5:27 pm
Another group to keep an eye on: Multiversal
September 17th, 2005 at 3:16 am
Here’s a new one: Digital Drama Studios
November 30th, 2005 at 8:38 pm
Via WRT: Tactical Language Training LLC, a spinoff of USC’s ISI / ICT.
September 29th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Just read that Digital Drama Studios just folded. But here’s a new one:
Artificial Contender from Trusoft
September 29th, 2007 at 3:05 am
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