This paper describes an unusual and promising application of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, in the construction of interactive children’s games.

The game guides the player in the construction of stories based on the characters from the British television series Tiny Planets. A critical constraint in story construction is that the story be coherent. This requirement is realized by representing the episodes of a story with domino-like tiles. The paper describes several ways in which a domino can represent an episode, perhaps the simplest being where the left panel denotes the characters present at the beginning of the episode, and the right panel denotes those present at the end of the episode. Matching such tiles ensures continuity. Plot coherence is assured by assigning tiles to phases of the story, for example theme or conflict introduction. When the player attempts to place a new tile, the system accepts it if a search finds a sequential plot narrative to which the existing sequence can be extended. The plot coherence is ensured by this same search, since the search requires that the tiles follow one of a set of story plans. The paper contains some illustrations of the system, which are regrettably only in black-and-white.

The paper is clearly written. Readers with relatively little background in AI or discourse structure will be able to follow the argument with little difficulty. By tying plot structure to search in the construction of coherent games, the authors have made a valuable contribution. The paper should be read by anyone with an interest in the applications of AI.