Combat action selection using situational awareness

• US 20080318654A1
• Filed: 06/21/2007
• Published: 12/25/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/21/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Langridge, Adam J., Molyneux, Peter D., Simmons, Guy
• Granted Patent: US 8,328,637 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 463/16
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/10 Control of the course of the game, e.g. start, progess, end
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/422 automatically for the purpose of assisting the player, e.g. automatic braking in a driving game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/45 Controlling the progress of the video game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/57 Simulating properties, behaviour or motion of objects in the game world, e.g. computing tyre load in a car race game A63F13/56 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/833 Hand-to-hand fighting, e.g. martial arts competition A63F13/837 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/6054 by generating automatically game commands to assist the player, e.g. automatic braking in a driving game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/64 for computing dynamical parameters of game objects, e.g. motion determination or computation of frictional forces for a virtual car
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/8029 Fighting without shooting

Abstract

A game environment is disclosed where actions are automatically selected based on a situational awareness for a player in the game environments. The situational awareness can be determined based on conditions of the player, objects and other characters in the game environment.

Claims

1. A method of operating a game environment, comprising:

receiving input from a user indicative of an operation of a game controller;

assessing a situational awareness status of a player including at least one player condition, at least one opponent condition and at least on object condition in the game environment; and

selecting an action from a plurality of actions for execution in the game environment based on the operation and the situational awareness.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the action is selected based on a priority ranking for each of the plurality of actions.

3. The method of claim 2 and further comprising:

determining a list of valid actions from the plurality of actions based on the situational awareness status; and

selecting the action based on the list of valid actions and the priority ranking for each valid action.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the action includes the player attacking an opponent in the game environment.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the action further includes using an object to attack the opponent in the game environment.

6. The method of claim 1 and further comprising:

receiving a second input from the user indicative of the operation of the game controller after selecting the action;

assessing a second situational awareness status of the player that is different from the first-mentioned situational awareness status; and

selecting a second action that is different from the first action based on the operation and the second situational awareness status.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the operation of the game controller includes pressing a single button.

8. A computer readable medium having instructions that, when executed on a computer, cause the computer to operate an interactive interface with a user, the instructions comprising:

a game environment adapted to receive input from a user indicative of an operation on a game controller and display content of a game including a player, at least one object and at least one opponent;

an environment monitoring module adapted to monitor current object conditions of the at least one object and current character conditions of the player and the at least one opponent within the game environment when the input is received; and

an action selection module adapted to select an action from a plurality of actions for the game environment based on the object conditions and the character conditions.

9. The computer readable medium of claim 8 wherein the action selection module is further adapted to access prerequisites for each of the plurality of actions to determine valid actions based on the object conditions and the character conditions.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 9 wherein the action selection module is further adapted to access a priority rank for each of the plurality of actions to select the action from the valid actions based on the priority rank for each valid action.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 8 wherein the action includes the player attacking the at least one opponent in the game environment.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 8 wherein the object conditions include a position of the at least one object and the character conditions include a position of the at least one opponent.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 8 wherein the game environment is adapted to receive a second input of the user indicative of the operation of the game controller after the action selection module has selected the action and wherein the action selection module selects a second action different from the first-mentioned action based on current object conditions and current character conditions determined by the environment monitoring module when the second input is received.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the operation is a single button being pressed on the game controller.

15. A method for performing combat actions in a game environment, comprising:

identifying a player, an opponent and an object in the game environment;

receiving user input indicative of an attack by the player against the opponent;

determining a position of the player, a position of the opponent and a position of the object; and

selecting a combat attack action preformed by the player against the opponent from a plurality of combat attack actions based on the position of the player, the position of the opponent and the position of the object.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the combat attack action includes the player using the object as a weapon to attack the opponent.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein the combat attack action includes throwing the opponent against the object.

18. The method of claim 15 and further comprising:

receiving user input indicative of initiating a second attack by the player, the user input being the same as initiating the first-mentioned attack; and

selecting a second combat attack action performed by the player from the plurality of combat attack actions.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the user input is a single button.

20. The method of claim 15 and further comprising:

determining a state of the opponent; and

selecting the combat attack action based on the state of the opponent.