Subject and Subjectivity: A Conversational Game Using Possible Worlds

We present Subject and Subjectivity, an exploratory conversational game where players are tasked with matching their friends with the ideal bachelor. The system uses a modal logic approach to modeling the narrative, based upon Marie-Laure Ryan’s possible worlds model for narrative [1]. The dialogue occurs in real-time and consists of navigating each character’s multiple and often conflicting world views. The system allows flexible character authoring, demonstrated by having the demo be playable with either hand-authored or procedurally generated characters. The demo serves as an early experiment into the use of possible worlds logic for interactive storytelling and dialogue systems.