Creating a new NPC for your game can be an interesting challenge, especially under tight time constraints.

Often, it involves many different departments (design, art, sound, effects, and programming) that have to coordinate to craft a distinct character rather than a jumble of different pieces and parts.

Artificial intellgience design typically sits squarely in the center of this process by coordinating all the different working parts into something that feels like a character, and with that in mind AI experts Rez Graham and Daniel Brewer took the stage during the GDC 2014 AI Summit to offer up case studies of how NPCs were designed and built for Electronic Arts’ The Sims: Medieval and Digital Extremes’ Warframe. 

Those are two very different games, and thus Brewer and Graham’s learnings were distinct and broadly applicable to a wide range of game design work. 

If you missed it in person, you can now watch their tag-team talk completely free over on the Official GDC YouTube channel.

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its new YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech