An Agent Framework for a Modular Serious Game

The architecture described in this paper provides emotional, believable agents for a serious game environment. Agents are designed to help players learn skills and to evaluate performance. The framework has been designed with a close connection to the development of other system components: the Game Engine for creating the virtual world; the Narrative Engine for driving the story; and the Dialogue System for communication. In order to provide a synchronized, intelligent solution it is essential to adapt traditional designs for independent components to consider the system as a whole. Effective communication and synchronization between system components is created by introducing a new system element: the Translation Engine. In this paper we describe the Agent Framework and associated services within the Translation Engine. This includes communication to other relevant system components but the components themselves are treated as black boxes.