Gaming Artificial Anasazi
Applying immersive game design and storytelling to an agent-based model in archaeologyAndreas Angourakis @AndrosSpica & Shawn Graham @electricarchaeo
https://andros-spica.github.io/TIPC2-Angourakis-Graham-2018/index.html?print-pdf (printable version)
click on images to consult source
I
Gaming simulated pasts
Agent-based modelling (ABM) is a relatively extended practice in Archaeology
Big challenge
Complicated designs + lack of documentation
=
Articles are read, results interpreted
but no one engages with the models
What if...
people could play these ABM archaeological models?
Insert the human into the simulation!
Schelling's Segregation model
Sugarscape series and Evolving planet
II
Artificial Anasazi
Anasazi → Ancestral Puebloans
The Artificial Anasazi model was designed for exploring the relation of climate change and cultural collapse
Long House Valley, NE Arizona
III
Gaming immersive ABM
What do we want?
- Agent-based model as game mechanics
- Turn the player into an agent
- 3D, first person, ideally VR-compatible
→ immersive, avoid god-like perspective - A game, but also a tool for communicating the model
How can we do it?
- Translate (replicate) the code from NetLogo to Unity (C#)
- Complement/expand the model to fill gaps
(e.g., have individuals instead of households) - Define and implement game mechanics
- Bonus I: develop/import minimum art assets, including text
- Bonus II: proper UI, game save system,
and a great etc.
IV
From NetLogo to Unity
Model translation
More profound understanding of the model
Revealed problematic assumptions
and hard-to-spot mistakes.
→ a general problem in ABM
corrected and accounting for individuals within households
V
The Working Title Game
Game concept
The point of the model:
to understand the factors behind the collapse of the Ancestral Puebloans,
by running the model many times for different parameter settings
The point of the game:
to understand the factors behind the collapse of the Ancestral Puebloans,
by immersive exploration, discovery, and interaction with NPCs and the 3D environment
Gameplay shots
Key mechanism still pending...
Gaming Artificial Anasazi
Applying immersive game design and storytelling to an agent-based model in archaeologyAndreas Angourakis @AndrosSpica & Shawn Graham @electricarchaeo
https://andros-spica.github.io/TIPC2-Angourakis-Graham-2018/index.html?print-pdf (printable version)
THANK YOU!
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