Advanced Features

Character Maker 4.2

Advanced Topics

Multiple Responses

Since it is possible to have more than one response for a keyword, Character Maker must have a way to decide which response to choose. By default, responses for a keyword are given in the order they appear in the responses list. Once all the responses have been exhausted the character returns to the first one. Character authors can prescribe alternate ways for responses to be chosen:

• Turning off "repeatable" for a response specifies that the response will never be used more than once. A word of caution: if a keyword does not contain any non-repeatable responses and they are all exhausted, then the character will fail the next time it looks for a response for that keyword.

• If you turn on randomize for a group of reponses, then the responses are not given in the order they appear but are selected at random.

• If you turn on "remember keyword," then the next time the user enters text which is not matched by any keyword the system will use this keyword rather than the dummy keyword.

• The order in which responses appear in the list, and thus the order in which they will be selected if randomize is off, can be changed by selecting a response and using the "move response up" and "move response down" buttons.

• You can choose to end the conversation with a particular response if you turn on "End of conversation."

Wildcards

Wildcards can be used to recognize more sophisticated user sentances as well as reuse parts of the user input in the response text. The "#" symbol will replace any string of text in the user input. For example, the keyword "# all # are #" will match sentances like "I think all computers are difficult" and "all dogs are cute."

Sometimes you might want to reuse the text matched by a wildcard in the response text. To do this you need to specify that the text matched by a wildcard is to be remembered. The symbol "(#)" will match any text and remember it. To recall the stored text in the response, place the symbol "__N__" in the response text, where N is the ith wildcard. For example: If the keyword is "My (#) is (#)" and the response is "So, your __1__ really is __2__ ?", then the user input "My name is Michael" will trigger "So your name really is Michael?"

Visualization

Character Maker can draw maps of the potential transitions from one topic to another. Pushing the "Visualize" button at the bottom of the editor window brings up the this display. The two pop up menus at the top of the window allow you to select the source and destination topics.

Flags

Flags enable you to embed more sophisticated control logic in a character. A response can test and set certain flags. You might, for example, test a flag so that a response is only given when the flag is in a particular state.