WO1993014844A1

WO1993014844A1 - Talking video games with cooperative action

Info

Publication number: WO1993014844A1
Application number: PCT/US1992/009726
Authority: WO
Inventors: Robert Macandrew Best
Original assignee: Best Robert M
Priority date: 1992-01-31
Filing date: 1992-11-06
Publication date: 1993-08-05
Also published as: JPH05228260A; AU3132793A

Abstract

This invention consists of methods of providing simulated voice dialog between a human game player (12) and talking animated characters (17, 18) that appear on a video or television screen (11) and perfom cooperative actions and talk about what they are doing or will soon do. They talk to each other and to the human players who control directly or indirectly what the characters do and say. Each player has a hand-held controller (31) that displays two or more words or sentences (22). A player (12) responds to what an animated character says by pressing a button (14) next to a selected sentence. An animated character then responds verbally or by action to the selected sentence as if it had been spoken by the human player or says the words the player selected. Human players thus have an illusion of voice dialog with interesting characters involved in cooperative activities.

Description

TALKING VIDEO GAMES WITH COOPERATIVE ACTION

Technical Field

This invention relates to video games, animated cartoons, and picture/sound synchronization.

Background Art

We are all born with a desire to talk and to be talked to. Listening to other people talk and thereby- sharing their emotional experiences is also a desire we are born with and this desire has been exploited in motion picture film and television in which voice sounds are essential. But until recently, voice sounds were seldom used in video games, because of the large amount of memory required.

Human players have long been able to control what characters do and what actions they perform in prior-art video games. But adding voice sounds and talking animated picture sequences to prior-art video games is not enough to simulate a face to face voice conversation. Some talking video games have animated cartoon sequences that alternate with side-scrolling skill-and-action sequences in which some of the characters talk. Although the actions of some of the characters can be controlled by a human player, characters do not yet talk to each other using words selected by a human player to comment on what they are doing or planning to do. Talking video games that allow human players to participate in dialog between animated characters that stir human emotions like dramatic films will have lasting appeal, because they will satisfy a basic human desire, the desire to talk with other people. Prior-art talking video games are disclosed in my U.S. Patents Numbers 4,305,131; 4,333,152; 4,445,187 and 4,569,026.

It is well known for human players to input choices using any of a variety of input devices such as push buttons, rotatable knobs, pressure sensitive membrane, proximity sensitive pads or screen overlay, light pen, light sensitive gun, joy stick, keyboard, mouse, track ball, moving a cursor or crosshairs or scrolling through highlighted options, speech recognition, etc.

The characters in video games and computer games, especially role-playing games, are of two types: player-controlled characters (or player characters) and non-player characters. A player-controlled character is a human player's animated surrogate or proxy and does what the human player chooses to have him do. Non-player characters are not directly controlled by a human player, but can be indirectly influenced by what a human player does, either by responding to input from a human player or responding to what a player-controlled character does or says.

In the prior art, each choice by the human can be immediately followed by a synthesized voice or digitized voice recording that speaks the words selected by the human player, so the human will quickly adjust to the fact that the spoken words he hears for his side of the dialog are initiated by his fingers rather than his vocal cords. Drawing Figures

FIG. 1 illustrates three scenes of an animated talking game with three characters who talk about and perform a cooperative activity, with one character illustrated as helping the other two characters get out of a dangerous situation.

FIG. 2 illustrates a hugging sequence in an animated talking game with one human player and two animated characters who talk to to each other about a cooperative activity shown being performed in FIG. 3.

FIG. 3 illustrates a kissing sequence in which characters perform the cooperative activity talked about in FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 illustrates a ledge-hanging scene in an animated talking game in which a talking cartoon character requires immediate help from a human player.

FIG. 5 illustrates branching dialog in an animated talking game sequence in which two animated characters talk to each other and to a human player about the dangerous situation shown in FIG. 4.

FIG. 6 illustrates a baseball scene in an animated talking game with two animated characters who talk about and perform a cooperative activity.

FIG. 7 illustrates an animated talking game with three animated characters, two of whom talk about and perform a cooperative rescue activity. Description of Preferred Embodiments

This invention consists of methods of providing simulated voice dialog between a human game player and talking animated characters that appear on a video or television screen and perform cooperative actions and talk about about what they are doing. Pictures and voices are generated from digital data read from a laser-readable disk or stored in semiconductor memory. The characters talk to each other and to human players who control directly or indirectly what the characters do and say. Each player has a hand-held controller that displays two or more words or sentences. A player responds to what an animated character says by pressing a button next to a selected sentence or by moving a cursor. An animated character then acts or verbally responds to the selected sentence as if it had been spoken by the human player or says the words the player selected. Speech recognition is not required. Human players are thus given an illusion of having voice dialog with interesting characters' involved in cooperative activities.

Referring to FIG. 1, in one embodiment of this invention a video game system generates on a video or television screen 11 several sequences of animated pictures 21, 25, and 28 showing three talking characters engaged in a cooperative rescue activity. The characters have distinctive voices. As sequence 21 begins, characters 18 and 30 are in a dangerous situation and character 17 is trying to rescue them. Character 17 speaks words represented in voice balloon 20 commenting on the rescue activity. A human player 12 in this example holds a hand-held controller 31 (shown more fully in FIG. 2) with three push- buttons 14 positioned next to corresponding menu items on a liquid-crystal display 22. Two or more alternative response sentences or phrases are shown on display 22, each being associated with one of the three push buttons 14. The hand of human player 12 is shown pressing one of the buttons 14 that selects one of the alternative sentences to be spoken by character 30.

While human player 12 is deciding which button to press, a linking picture sequence (not shown) continues to show the same scene with the characters trying to pull up on the rope or trying to climb up the rope. When player 12 selects one of the displayed alternative response sentences, the animated picture changes to sequence 25 and the selected sentence is sounded in the voice of player-controlled character 30 who repeats the words selected by human player 12. These voice sounds are represented in balloon 23 (in this .example "GRAB THE ROPE TOM") . Tom is character 18 who is shown in sequence 21 hanging dangerously onto an ankle of character 30. After character 30 says the selected sentence in balloon 23, character 18 grabs hold of the rope and then responds in his voice with the words "I'VE GOT IT" which are the preprogrammed words for the selected sentence. These voice sounds of character 18 are represented in balloon 24. The actions of character 18 are the preprogrammed actions for the selected sentence. If human player 12 had selected a different one of the alternative sentences, the character 18 would have behaved differently and spoken different response words. The video game system next generates an animated picture sequence showing character 18 climbing the rope. This climbing sequence is not shown in the drawings. When character 18 reaches character 17 in sequence 28, character 17 says in her voice "HOLD MY ARM" (in balloon 27) and the rescue activity proceeds. Thus, the animated characters perform or attempt to perform cooperative rescue actions and talk about these actions while both the actions and voice sounds are controlled directly or indirectly by a human player or players. The words spoken by character 17 may also be selected by a human player from a second menu (not shown) of alternative sentences for her to say. This human player may be a second player 10 as shown in FIG. 5.

After the end of sequence 28, the game system generates another animated sequence, then another sequence, then another sequence, etc. in which a human player controls, directly or indirectly, character actions and voice sounds as described above for FIG. 1.

A variation of the FIG. 1 game is shown in FIG. 7 and is described below. Before each game begins, each human player may select which character he or she wants to play. Alternatively, each player-controlled character may be shown on the video screen and the question asked "Who wants to play this character?" for each character shown. The game system then records which of the several hand-held controller 31 responds so that later the alternative sentences for that character will be shown only on the controller for the player who is playing that character (in this example player 12 who plays character 30) . A human player may also choose to play a player-controlled character that is not always shown on the video screen, but who may be off-screen and carry on a dialog with on-screen characters.. Referring to FIG. 2, in another embodiment of the invention, a video game system displays on the video or television screen 11 an animated picture sequence having two or more animated talking characters 17 and 18. In this example, character 17 is a player-controlled character that human player 12 controls. Player 12 plays the role of character 17 and can talk to character 18■and any other characters in the game through character 17. Player 12 holds the hand-held controller 31 with three push buttons 14 next to the liquid-crystal. display 22, shown enlarged in FIG. 2 for clarity. The game system displays three alternative responses on display 22. Player 12 selects one of the displayed responses (in this example "KISS ME AGAIN") with the push button 14 associated with the selected displayed response. Voice sounds 15 for character 17 then say the words selected from display 22. The words are directed at character 18 whose voice sounds 16 then respond to the words of character 17. The two animated characters 17 and 18 may respond in reverse sequence, that is, the non-player character 18 may say his line first so that the player-controlled character 17 can respond as ordered by human player 12. For example, after player 12 selects "KISS ME AGAIN", character 18 may say "WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?" a prerequisite sentence that is not one of the displayed alternatives. Only then will character 17 respond with the selected "KISS ME AGAIN" sentence which is responsive to what character 18 has just said. Such reversals can make the dialog seem more spontaneous. Voices or sub-titles may also be used to express unspoken thoughts or the thoughts of non-speaking characters such as babies or animals, or inanimate objects such as a thinking rock. Cloud balloon 19 represents an unspoken thought of character 18 in FIG. 2 which is sounded (with mouth not moving) in response to spoken sentence 15 of character 17. Voice sounds for unspoken thoughts may be electronically altered to indicate to players that a voice is not a normal spoken voice. For example, unspoken thoughts can be given a hollow or tremulous sound or a whispering sound by electronically or digitally editing voice sound data before converting to audio. Referring to FIG. 3, when characters 17 and 18 perform a competitive or cooperative activity such as kissing, one of the characters may speak (with moving mouth) or think unspoken thoughts (sounded with unmoving or unsynchronized mouth) as in cloud balloon 29, responsive to the action being shown or to what was said or done in the prior sequence shown in FIG. 2 or in response to a phrase selected from display 22. Referring to FIG. 4, in another embodiment of this invention a video game system displays on a TV screen an animated picture sequence showing a character 18 hanging by his fingers from a ledge on the outside of a building. His friends on the roof have thrown him a rope which is not long enough to reach character 18. This ledge-hanging situation sets up the next scene shown in FIG. 5 in which two animated characters exchange dialog with one or two human players and with each other regarding the dangerous situation of character 18.

Referring to FIG. 5, picture sequences 21, 25, and 28 are in a roof scene in which two talking characters discuss how to rescue the character shown in FIG. 4. One or two human players participate in the conversation by "saying" words or phrases or sentences to the animated talking characters who then answer responsively and ask questions or make remarks that lead to the next input by a player. The alternatives shown on display 22 are suggested solutions to the problem posed in spoken sentence 20. When a human player 10 presses button 14 next to "Call emergency", one of the characters responds in sequence 25 by asking spoken question 23 to the other character who responds with spoken question 24 directed to the human player. Question 24 is also accompanied by alternative actions 26 on display 22. When player 12 presses the button 14 next to "Slide down the rope", a character comments on this choice of action with spoken sentence 27 in sequence 28. Thus, a simulated verbal dialog can continue through several exchanges of words within the same scene.

After the problem of how to rescue character 18 in FIG. 4 is decided by a human player, one of the FIG. 5 characters such as character 17 may be shown performing actions that result in the rescue. Such actions may include character 17 helping character 18 over the top of the building in an animated picture sequence that is equivalent to sequence 28 in FIG. 1.

Referring to FIG. 6, in one embodiment of. this invention a video game system generates on the video or television screen 11 several sequences of animated pictures 33, 34, and 35 showing two talking characters 37 and 38 engaged in a cooperative or competitive baseball playing activity. The characters have distinctive voices. As sequence 33 begins, character 37 is ready to pitch a baseball in the direction of character 38 who is holding a bat ready to hit the ball. Character 37 speaks words represented in voice balloon 40 commenting on the ability of character 38 to perform the cooperative activity. The human player 12 . in this example holds the hand-held controller 31 with three push buttons 14 positioned next to display 22 showing a menu of alternative response sentences or phrases. The hand of human player 12 is shown pressing one of the buttons 14 that selects one of the alternative sentences. When player 12 selects a sentence, the words of the selected sentence are sounded in the voice of character 38. These words are represented in balloon 41. The animated picture then changes to sequence 34 showing character 37 pitching the ball, after which she comments on her performance of the cooperative activity. These voice sounds are represented in balloon 42. The animated picture then changes to sequence 35 showing character 38 swinging the bat at the ball. When he unsuccessfully hits the ball, he voices a remark about his lack of success in performing this cooperative activity. These voice sounds are represented in balloon 43. Thus, the animated characters 37 and 38 perform or attempt to perform cooperative or competitive actions and talk about these actions, while both the actions and voice sounds are controlled directly or indirectly by a human player or players. The words spoken by character 38 in balloon

43 may be selected by a human player from a second menu (not shown) of alternative sentences for him to- say or be automatically selected by the game system based on the sentence previously selected by the player to be spoken by character 38 from the alternative sentences of display 22.

The actions of characters 37 and 38- should change depending on what a character says. For example, if character 38 voices an irritating remark, character 37 may place her hands on her hips in a defiant stance with an annoyed facial expression, and reply with an equally rude remark, then resume the ballgame. Or character 37 may pitch the ball differently depending on what a character says. Or character 38 may swing the bat differently depending on what a character says. The cooperative action should change depending on human player input and not be unchangably fixed like a movie film. Hence, the choices made by a human player on controller 31 influence what characters say and the actions that characters perform.

Referring to FIG. 7, in another embodiment of this invention the video game system generates on the video or television screen 11 animated picture sequences 21, 25, and 28 showing three talking characters engaged in a cooperative rescue activity. This game differs from the game illustrated in FIG. 1 in that the human player 12 does not directly control the words spoken by any of the three characters 17, 18, or 30 shown in FIG. 7. And the words selected by human player 12 in FIG. 7 are sounded in a voice that differs from the voices of the three characters.

As sequence 21 begins, characters 18 and 30 are in a dangerous situation and character 17 is trying to rescue them. Character 17 speaks words represented in voice balloon 20 commenting on the rescue activity. Two or more alternative response sentences or phrases are shown on display 22, each being associated with one of the three push buttons 14. The hand of human player 12 presses one of the push buttons 14 that selects one of the alternative sentences to provide the player's side of the dialog. The selected sentence may be voiced by no character or by an off-screen player-controlled character who is the human player's surrogate.

When player 12 selects one of the displayed alternative response sentences, the animated picture changes to sequence 25 and the selected sentence is sounded. These voice sounds are represented in balloon 32 (in this example "GRAB THE ROPE TOM") and repeat the selected sentence. Tom is character 18 who then grabs hold of the rope. If human player 12 had selected a different one of the alternative sentences, a different or the same character may perform whatever action is selected. Character 30 then responds to this action or to the player's surrogate sentence of balloon 32 with responsive voice sounds in the voice of character 30 as represented in balloon 23. The words used by character 30 are the preprogrammed words for the selected sentence. The sentence in balloon 23 is not the same as the sentence in balloon 32 in this example. If human player 12 had selected a different one of the alternative sentences, character 30 would have acted differently and spoken different response words.

After character 30 vocally responds by saying the words in balloon 23, the video game system generates an animated picture sequence showing character 18 climbing the rope or performing whatever action is suggested by the words in balloon 23.. This climbing sequence is not shown in the drawings. When character 18 reaches character 17 in sequence 28, character 17 says in her voice "HOLD MY ARM" (in balloon 27) and the rescue activity proceeds. Thus, the animated characters perform or attempt to perform cooperative rescue actions and talk about these actions while both the actions and voice sounds are controlled directly or indirectly by a human player or players. The words spoken by character 17 may also be selected by a human player from a second menu (not shown) of alternative sentences for her to say. This human player may be a second player 10 as shown in FIG. 5. To allow each background scene to be used with different animated characters who can move around against the background scene, the digital animation data for the background scene should be stored separately from the digital animation data for each character. Similarly, to allow each character to say many different sentences without a scene change, the digitized voice data should be independent of the animation data. In the preferred embodiment, animated character video, voice sound sequences and prompting word sequences are generated independently from separately stored digital data. Dialog data that is not used in one scene may be used later in a different scene with the same or different characters. The voice data may consist of sequences of codes or compressed digital recordings of words, phrases, word segments or phonemes in several distinctive voices so that each character can speak thousands of preprogrammed words or sentences. Similarly, the digital data for each animated character's body may be stored separately from sprite data for moving lips, facial expressions, and gestures, so that each character and its distinctive voice can be lip-synchronized with different mouth movements depending on which branch the dialog takes. The digital data for each animated character may also combine body, lips, expressions, gestures and voice sounds.

When a human player presses one of the buttons 14 (FIG. 1, 2, 5, 6 or 7) the game system may generate a voice sound speaking the selected sentence as a substitute for the player's side of the dialog. The animated character then "responds" as if the generated voice sounds had been spoken by the human player. Because the player selects the words which are actually sounded, he will quickly adjust to the fact that the spoken words he hears for his side of the dialog are initiated by his fingers rather than his vocal cords. This "echo" voice repeating the selected words is important for games with multiple human players so that each player will hear what each of the other players has "said" to on-screen characters. Pushing one of the buttons 14 selects both a simulated verbal response to the words previous spoken by an animated character and also selects a new dialog sequence that corresponds to the simulated verbal response shown on display 22. The selected dialog sequence includes the face and voice of the animated character speaking words which are responsive to the player's selected verbal response. The illustrated embodiments of the invention make use of the hand-held controller 31 having one push-button 14 for each menu item on display 22 and echo voices to avoid sub-titles on the video or television screen. Alternatively, the menus may be shown on the video or television screen instead of on the hand-held display and be selected by players using hand-held controllers 31 that lack displays.

Each character can be an animated cartoon, digitized live action, analog live action, a sprite or the like, and be player controlled or not. The term "verbal expression" means any word, words, phrase, sentence, question, expletive, curse, keyword, combination of keywords, symbol, icon, or any meaningful human voice sound such as "huh?" or "hmmm" or laughter or scream. The word kissing is used herein to mean simulated touching of one animated character's mouth to another animated character's mouth or other body part.

The phrase "cooperative action" is used broadly herein to encompass actions between friendly video characters and competitive actions between opposing video characters in such activities as rescues, chases, searching, ball games, fighting, and other simulated games, contests and activities.

Although I have described the preferred embodiments of my invention with a degree. of particularity, it is understood that the present disclosure has been made only by way of example and that equivalent steps and components may be substituted and design details changed without departing from the spirit and scope of my invention.

Claims

1. A method of simulating voice conversations between a human and at least two talking animated characters having different voices, comprising the steps of:

generating an animated picture showing first and second talking characters performing cooperative actions;

generating first voice sounds in the voice of said first character talking to said second character about said cooperative actions;

displaying a plurality of alternative verbal expressions responding to said first voice sounds;

receiving an input signal selecting a verbal expression from said plurality thereof;

generating second voice sounds in the voice of said second talking character responding to said selected verbal expression; and

generating an animated picture showing one of said characters performing an action in response to said second voice sounds.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said second voice sounds respond to said selected verbal expression using words different from the words of said selected verbal expression.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said second voice sounds repeat words of said selected verbal expression.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said cooperative actions include one of said characters helping another of said characters to move out of danger.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said cooperative actions include one of said characters propelling a ball through the air toward the other of said characters.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said cooperative actions include one of said characters hugging or kissing another of said characters.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein some of said talking characters are animated cartoons.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein some of the animated pictures of said talking characters are generated from digitized images.

9. A method of simulating voice conversations between a human and at least two talking animated characters having different voices, comprising the steps of:

displaying a plurality of alternative verbal expressions related to said cooperative actions; ^' receiving an input signal selecting a verbal expression from said plurality thereof;

generating first voice sounds in the voice of said first talking character responding to said selected verbal expression; and

generating second voice sounds in the voice of said second talking character responding to said first voice sounds.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said first voice sounds respond to said selected verbal^' expression using words different from the words of said selected verbal expression.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein said first voice sounds repeat words of said selected verbal expression.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein said cooperative actions include one of said characters helping another of said characters to move out of danger.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein said cooperative actions include one of said characters propelling a ball through the air toward the other of said characters.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein said cooperative actions include one of said characters hugging or kissing another of said characters.

15. The method of claim 9 wherein some of said talking characters are animated cartoons.

16. The method of claim 9 wherein some of the animated pictures of said talking characters are generated from digitized images.

17. A method of simulating voice conversations between a human and at least two talking animated characters having different voices, comprising the steps of:

generating an animated picture showing an endangered character in a dangerous situation;

generating an animated picture showing first and second talking characters performing a cooperative activity to help said endangered character to move out of danger;

generating first voice sounds in the voice of said first character talking to said second character about said cooperative activity;

displaying a plurality of alternative verbal expressions responding to said first voice sounds and suggesting a plurality of alternative actions;

generating an animated picture showing one of said characters performing the action suggested by said selected verbal expression so as to help said endangered character to move out of danger.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein said second voice sounds respond to said selected verbal expression using words different from the words of said selected verbal expression.

5

19. The method of claim 17 wherein said second voice sounds repeat words of said selected verbal expression.

10 20. A method of simulating interaction between a human and at least two talking animated characters having different voices, comprising the steps of:

generating an animated picture showing first and second 15 talking characters performing a cooperative activity during which both characters perform a series of actions;

generating first voice sounds in the voice of said 20 first character talking about said cooperative activity;

generating an animated picture showing actions of said first character prompting said second character to perform one of a plurality of alternative actions;

25 receiving an input signal selecting an action from said plurality of alternative actions;

generating an animated picture showing said second 30 character performing said selected action; and

generating second voice sounds in the voice of said second character talking to said first character about said selected action.

35

21. The method of claim 20 wherein said cooperative activity includes one of said characters helping another of said characters to move out of danger.

22. The method of claim 20 wherein said cooperative activity includes one of said characters propelling a ball through the air toward another of said characters,

23. The method of claim 20 wherein said cooperative activity includes one of said characters hugging or kissing another of said characters.

24. The method of claim 20 wherein some of said talking characters are animated cartoons.

25. The method of claim 20 wherein some of the animated pictures of said talking characters are generated from digitized images.

26. A method of simulating voice conversations between a human and at least two talking animated characters having different voices, comprising the steps of:

generating an animated picture showing one of said characters performing one of said plurality of alternative actions with the selected action being in response to said selected verbal expression.