SimDate3D is a simple academic game featuring two virtual agents Thomas and Barbara. The setting of the game is as follows: Thomas and Barbara are friends, they meet by a coincidence one day and one of them suggests they could go to the cinema. The other agrees and the goal of the user is to assure they really make it to the cinema. Thomas and Barbara communicate through actions. Too many positive actions can scare the other character resulting in mutual depart. Too many negative actions will result in character loosing interest. No actions lead to boredom that leads to depart as well. Also if the communication between the two is too much positive they will skip cinema and head home together resulting in game loss.
Characters feature simple BDI based decision making system and affect called feeling. Feeling is a valence attributed to other character and is represented by colored balls around characters heads. Yellow balls means positive feeling, pink very positive feeling, green negative feeling and brown very negative feeling. Beware the green and the pink because there is high probability the characters will depart or skip the cinema and head home!

To compute feeling value emotion model ALMA by Patrik Gebhard was used ( http://www.dfki.de/~gebhard/alma/index.html ).

Check SimDate3D level two!

Assure Thomas and Barbara make it to the cinema together with minimal performed user actions. Each action has its cost, some actions are more expensive than others. Get them to the cinema with more than 5000 points left and you are good!

List of all actions available to user in the game:

• Action Joke – a mildly positive action
• Action Compliment – very positive action
• Action Blame – mildly negative action
• Action Insult – negative action
• Action Speak – neutral action, more kinds available – weather, shopping, generic…
• Weird walking – can result in both positive and negative answer
• Changing the distance and the angle the characters walk next to each other - this also influence character emotions

Run SimDate3D.exe file from the folder where you installed SimDate3D. After a while you may be asked to specify the location of UnrealEngine2RuntimeDemo folder that is also present in the folder where you installed the game. Afterwards a Java window with three buttons appears and UnrealEngine2RuntimeDemo client window starts. Wait 10 seconds and click ok. After a while you'll find yourself spectating 3D virtual city in UnrealEngine2RuntimeDemo window, if the game is not started, click the start button in the Java window. After some time the characters appear in the game (starting can last up to one minute) and you will be able to use left mouse button to focus on them. At this time the key controls mentioned in following section start to work.

The user appears in the game as a ghost without the body observing the scene. Use can move manually with arrow keys and mouse. Left clicking the mouse focuses on one of the characters in the scene – we recommend using this view to play the game. Mousewheel increase and decrease observing distance and mouse movement changes angle.
The key controls of the game:

• Key 1 – triggers random positive action (the higher the feeling the higher chance more positive action will be triggered) - costs 250
• Key 2 – triggers random negative action (the lower the feeling the higher chance more negative action will be triggered) - costs 250
• Key 3 – weird walking triggered - costs 250
• Key 4 – normal walking triggered - costs 250
• Key Z – action joke triggered - costs 350
• Key X – action compliment triggered - costs 350
• Key V – action insult triggered - costs 350
• Key B – action blame triggered - costs 350
• Key N – random neutral action speak triggered - costs 300
• Keys 9 and 0 - increase/decrease distance between characters - costs 50
• Keys H, U, J, K - change the angle the girl is following the boy at - costs 100
• Key 5 – starts the game when the game is ended
• Key 6 – ends the game

SimDate3D 1.0 was partially supported by a student grant GA UK No. 0449/2010/A-INF/MFF, “Emohawk” modifications and extensions to SimDate3D (i.e. ver. 1.0.4) used for educational purposes at Charles University in Prague were supported by the project CZ.2.17/3.1.00/33274 financed by the European Social Fund (2011 - 2013). SimDate3D 1.0 originated from software package Emohawk developed under the project CZ.2.17/3.1.00/31162 financed by the European Social Fund (2008 - 2011).

European Social Fund
Prague and EU: we invest into your future!

Research on storytelling and emotion modelling is partly supported by the research project MSM0021620838 (2007 - 10).