Providing computer game characters with conversational abilities

Abstract. This paper presents the NICE fairy-tale game system, which enables adults and children to engage in conversation with animated characters in a 3D world. In this paper we argue that spoken dialogue technology have the poten-tial to greatly enrichen the user’s experience in future computer games. We also present some requirements that have to be fulfilled to successfully integrate spoken dialogue technology with a computer game application. Finally, we briefly describe an implemented system that has provided computer game char-acters with some conversational abilities that kids have interacted with in studies.