Patent ID: 7778948

Claim:
A character programming and control system for programming and controlling an automated non-player character that interacts with a player character during an immersive game in a simulated world based on (1) high-level communicative functions, each representing the illocutionary force of the intended communication which the non-player character is to perform during the immersive game in the simulated world; (2) communicative behaviors, each representing a speech or non-verbal communicative act that the non-player is to perform during the immersive game in the simulated world that wholly or partially implements one or more of the high level communicative functions; and (3) current contexts, each representing a current state and/or current environment of the virtual character during the social simulation; the system comprising: a set of mapping rules, each mapping at least one of the high-level communicative functions during at least one of the current contexts to at least one of the communicative behaviors; a social puppet module configured to locate a rule within the mapping rules which maps one of the high-level communicative functions during one of the current contexts of the non-player character in the immersive game in the simulated world to at least one of the communicative behaviors; and an action scheduler configured to convert each of the communicative behaviors located by the social puppet module within the mapping rules into a sequence of one or more animations that the non-player character performs during the immersive game in the simulated world that implement the specified communicative behavior.