Generative conversation tool for game writers

Conversation is an important part of many games, whether it is there to provide information or entertainment. In the current state of commercial game development, almost all conversation is hand-authored. Further, different authoring approaches are used for conversations between non-player characters (typically linear scripting) versus conversations between a non-player character and a human player (typically dialogue trees). In this paper, we present a tool, designed in collaboration with Telltale Games, for creating cocktail party conversations in which characters engage in free-flowing conversations. From an authorial perspective, we start at the hand-authoring side of the spectrum and add system-level support for conversation generation -- our aim is to decrease the authorial burden of creating a conversation while remaining close to existing methods the company's designers are familiar with using.