Building The Universe In A Box

Following up on my previous article on emergent gameplay dynamics, I began to give some serious thought to creating a true sandbox RPG, that holy grail universe-in-a-box that grants the user infinite freedom to alter and even recreate new worlds to quest in, one where not even a single action or event is scripted.

Building on the notion of the simplified lexicon of overall actions and events, the developer's goal would be to construct a world similar to The Sims in that the characters all have needs and certain predilections. However, this would be adapted to a range of actions more suited to the RPG archetype. For instance, a character may, when affronted by another, opt to handle their differences with a swordfight. Again, the actual detail of the ouput would be limited, the days of an AI agent reading off their own poetry, generated in-game, are nowhere close, but there would be a generalized set of interactions around which the player would be able to construct their own story. Instead, the characters in our game may speak a sort of medieval babble, replete with taunts, triumphant sounding retorts, and the requisite evil laughter.

The basic economic system of our world would have to be more complex. Rather than purchasing lots and building modern homes like in The Sims, there would be a rudimentary commerce system, perhaps relying on just a few iconic goods, such as mined ores or magical energy even, that characters individually seek to gain more of and conduct trade with. In a degree of sophistication surpassing The Sims, the characters themselves would seek to purchase land, construct their own shops, and generally procure themselves a niche in the landscape. The distribution of resources across the land and presence of other settlements, as well as a given character's personality, would determine where they seek to settle, if at all. In fact, the attitude of each character would determine the nature of their interactions with others in many ways. Whereas some characters may go about the process of seeking wealth in a generally lawful manner, the villains would tend to take what they could where they could get away with it.

One interesting idea, besides the added complexity of AI real-estate development and a functional, although simplified economy, would be the opportunity to get away from the egalitarian social system of The Sims. Perhaps in our theoretical sandbox RPG, characters all fit into their own separate places in a feudalist system. This would radically change the nature of the social interactions in the game. Some AI agents would be compelled, to varying degrees, to help further the goals of other AI agents. There would be an added layer of abstraction between the direct experience of a need and the satisfaction of that need. For example, a character seeking to gain wealth may end up helping another character fight off some bandits, if that character has wealth to offer.

If we extrapolate the feudal social system out, our sandbox RPG can be understood as a system embodying competitive economic development where the total resources an individual character wields includes capability of production, actual holdings, and the fealty of other characters. One action in our simple lexicon of RPG actions may be for a villainous character to kidnap the family member of a wealthy character, hoping to extract a ransom. The wealthy character may then, in turn, issue a reward to ensure the safe return of their loved one, or even send out their own group of AI agents to find the kidnapper.

This is where the player character enters the picture. The player could be one of many separate entities attempting to get the reward. The limitations on what plot-twists arise would be limited only to the range of actions implemented in our RPG lexicon. Perhaps other, less scrupulous reward-seekers would attack the player character in an attempt to derail his/her efforts. The possible actions that could take place and all of the various resources and equipment in play are merely the basic elements of our game world. The way in which all of those elements combine would create a truly emergent story. In fact, the player may instead be the wealthy merchant issuing the reward, or even the one doing the kidnapping.

To create the complete universe in a box, we could pre-package our little world that we've grown and we could include the ability for the player to develop their own. Simply provide a few seed values, such as the amount of resources, population, etc., then allow the game itself to procedurally generate some terrain and some AI agents. When the world begins, the generated characters are all dropped in to seek out their own fortunes. Perhaps the world is aged to some degree, so that there are power structures already in place by the time the player decides to enter, or perhaps the player is there from the beginning. Either option would be possible. Once all the underlying game systems are in place, it wouldn't be incredibly difficult to lay a simple combat engine and some decent graphics on top, and our living, breathing RPG is complete. Any series of events could unfold, and the player would have the option of truly playing any role they wished.