Author in the Loop: Using Mixed-Initiative Planning to Improve Interactive Narrative

This paper describes a foundation for an interface to allow non-technical human authors to collaborate with an automated planning system to design interactive narrative. Drawing from research in advisable and mixed-initiative planning, a domain metatheory is presented that allows for qualitative elaborations of narrative domains. The authors describe a graphical user interface that exploits this metatheory to specify authorial preferences. Specific constructs related to interactive narrative are considered to demonstrate how the preferences of the human author may be used to define and control the possible user experiences of an interactive narrative.