Development of a Conversational Game Support Agent that Uses Peer Learning to Create a Sense of Rivalry According to the User’s Skill Level

Abstract

In this study, we aim to develop an interactive game-support agent that enhances user persistence and motivation by fostering a sense of rivalry tailored to the user’s play level, based on the three factors of rivalry proposed by Kilduff et al. The agent is designed to act not merely as an opponent but as a peer, thereby suppressing potential negative aspects of rivalry, such as hostility and irrational behavior, while promoting user skill improvement and continuous learning support. We employ Dobutsu Shogi (Animal Shogi) as the task, as it is fully solved and allows objective evaluation of gameplay and match design according to the user’s skill level. Through game evaluations and impression evaluations, we verify the effectiveness of the proposed agent.