Emotion engines for games in practice: Two case studies using Gamygdala

The technology to simulate emotions for NPCs is industry ready. This has been the case for several years, and recent scientific advancements show that pluggable, black-box, emotion engines are feasible. We believe that exposure to, and ease-of-use of such engines are important factors that limit uptake. To facilitate this, we have developed a fully documented JavaScript-based version of GAMYGDALA including a plugin for the JavaScript-based game engine Phaser. Further, to seed imagination, we have developed two experimental games: an emotional arcade game and an emotional puzzle game. The games use GAMYGDALA to simulate NPC emotions and showcase novel gameplay enabled by emotion simulation. Further, these two cases show how straightforward simulating emotions is when properly supported by an emotion engine.