Current Projects
Digital Improvisation
This project explores how to formalize techniques used in real-world interactive drama domains (e.g. tabletop role-playing, improvisational theatre, and live action role-play). Such formalizations can better inform our design of story directors and synthetic characters for digital interactive drama systems.
Digital Conservation
This current work focuses on the creation of 3D virtual worlds of ecosystems threatened by environmental change. These virtual worlds can then be used to education, awareness, and scientific visualization.
Interactive Story Architecture for Training
This project involves implementing techniques used in interactive drama in a military training architecture. This architecture, called ISAT, attempts to provide the trainee with a training experience that is individualized to their specific training needs in a dramatic context. The architecture explores the use of a director agent to manage the training experience, providing in-game feedback based on a model of the trainee’s aptitude in the various skills being taught.
Scribe
This work focuses on providing a tool that allows for the visual creation of interactive story content (specifically for education). The design philosophy behind Scribe is to provide a tool that is usable by educators and trainers without specialized programing knowledge.
Intelligent Tutoring Games
Intelligent tutoring games are games for learning that adapt themselves along a series of dimensions for pedagogical effectiveness as well as for entertainment / engagement. These dimensions include interactive narrative, adaptive game mechanics, and educational content tailored to a student’s needs. We are currently designing a series of mini-games for the S.C.R.U.B. game, which will be used as a prototype for exploring AI approaches in game adaptation based on player learning style and play preferences.
the digital tabletop
the digital tabletop is a blog-based work that is the result of transmedia comparisons of game design in board games and digital games. This comparison is intended to yield an understanding of the relationships between the two mediums and insights into design concepts native to one medium that may be applied to the other.
Teaching
I am a member of the School of Literature, Communication and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Courses I teach presently include:
LCC 6317: Interactive Narrative
LCC 6650B2: Digital Improvisation Studio
Publications
PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS
Magerko, B. Evaluating Preemptive Story Direction in the Interactive Drama Architecture. Journal of Game Development, 2(3), 2007.
PEER-REVIEWED CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
Pita, J., Magerko, B. and Brodie, S. TRUE STORY: Dynamically Generated, Contextually Linked Quests in Persistent Systems. FuturePlay, Toronto, ON, 2007.
Eitelman, S., Magerko, B., Holt, L., and Stensrud, B. Questions and Issues in Developing a Modular Narrative Learning Environment. Papers from the 2nd Workshop on Narrative Learning Environments in conjunction with the 13th Artificial Intelligence in Education conference, 2007. Marina del Rey, California.
Magerko, B. Measuring Dramatic Believability. In Artificial Intelligence and
Interactive Entertainment: Papers from the 2007 AAAI Fall Symposium, 2007. Menlo
Park, CA.
Magerko, B. A Comparative Analysis of Story Representations for Interactive Narrative Systems. 3rd Annual Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference, 2007. Marina del Rey, California.
Medler, B. and Magerko, B. Scribe: A General Tool for Authoring Interactive Drama. 3rd International Conference on Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment, 2006. Darmstadt, DE, pp. 139-150.
Mosher, B. and Magerko, B. Personality Templates and Social Hierarchies Using Stereotypes. 3rd International Conference on Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment, 2006. Darmstadt, DE, pp. 207-218.
Magerko, B., Stensrud, B., and Holt, L. Bringing the Schoolhouse Inside the Box – A Tool for Engaging, Individualized Training. 25th Army Science Conference, 2006. Orlando, FL.
Flowers, A. Magerko, B., and Mishra, P. Gamemasters and Interactive Story: A Categorization of Storytelling Techniques in Live Roleplaying. Futureplay, 2006. London, Ontario.
Magerko, B. Story Representation and the Interactive Drama. 1st Annual Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference, 2005. Marina del Rey, California.
Magerko, B., Wray, B., Holt, L., and Stensrud, B. Improving Interactive Training through Individualized Content and Increased Engagement. I/ITSEC, 2005. Orlando, FL.
Magerko, B. and Laird, J.E. Mediating the Tension Between Plot and Interaction. AAAI
Workshop Series: Challenges in Game Artificial Intelligence, 2004. San Jose, California,
108-112.
Magerko, B., Laird, J.E., Assanie, M., Kerfoot, A., and Stokes, D. AI Characters and Directors for Interactive Computer Games. 16th Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence
Conference, 2004. San Jose, California, 877-883.
Magerko, B. and Laird, J.E. Building an Interactive Drama Architecture. First International
Conference on Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment,
2003. Darmstadt, Germany, 226-237.
Magerko, B. and Laird, J.E. Towards Building an Interactive Training Simulator. Behavior Representation and Computer Generated Forces Conference, 2002. Orlando, FL.
Magerko, B. A Proposal for an Interactive Drama Architecture. In Artificial Intelligence and
Interactive Entertainment: Papers from the 2002 AAAI Spring Symposium, 2002. Menlo
Park, CA.
Laird, J.E., Assanie, M., Bacherlor, B., Benninghoff, N., Enam, S., Jones, B., Kerfoot, A.,
Lauver, C., Magerko, B., Sheiman, J., Stokes, D., Wallace, S. A Testbed for Developing Intelligent Synthetic Characters. In Artificial Intelligence and Interactive
Entertainment: Papers from the 2002 AAAI Spring Symposium, 2002. Menlo Park, CA, 52-56.
Bruce, A., Knight, J., Listopad, S., Magerko, B., and Nourbakhsh, I. Robot Improv: Using Drama to Create Believable Agents. ICRA 2000, Vol. 4, April, 4002 - 4008, 1999.
BOOK CHAPTERS
Magerko, B. The Future of Digital Game-Based Learning, Handbook of Effective Electronic Gaming in Education, ed. Ferdig, R., IGI Global, in press.
Magerko, B. Intelligent Story Direction in the Interactive Drama Architecture, AI Game Programming Wisdom, ed. Rabin, S., Charles River Media, Volume 3, 2006.
DISSERTATION
Magerko, B. Player Modeling in the Interactive Drama Architecture. Ph.D. dissertation for the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2006.
