Interactive Storytelling in Virtual Environments: Building the “Holodeck”

In this paper, we introduce an ongoing research project, which aims at developing an immersive storytelling environment. In such a system, which is inspired from the “Holodeck” device, human users will be able to interact with artificial actors through speech, while sharing the same physical environment. Once on the set, the users will be able to participate in story generation by influencing virtual actors or altering the common environment. An essential aspect is that user involvement will not have to be permanent, and that the users will be allowed to leave the set to watch the story unfold in their absence and to return at a later stage. We discuss some fundamental AI problems with which the implementation will be faced and relate them to narrative theories and models of storytelling. More specifically, we describe how users can interfere with the virtual actor’s plans to influence story generation in terms of interaction