The design of ATET draws significant inspiration from the rich history of social and life simulation games. While ATET pushes into metaphysical and narrative territory, its foundation rests on the shoulders of games that pioneered the modeling of personality, interpersonal relationships, and the emergent stories that arise from complex, simulated lives.

Agent Autonomy & Personality

• The Sims Series, particularly The Sims 3: The Sims franchise is a cornerstone for its simulation of autonomous individuals with distinct personalities. The Sims 3, for example, moved beyond simple personality points by introducing a “Traits” system. These traits are not just flavor text; they directly influence a Sim’s autonomous behavior, the social interactions they choose, and how they react to the world. An agent with the “Grumpy” trait is harder to get into a good mood, while a “Slob” will react positively to a messy environment that would stress a “Neat” Sim. This directly parallels ATET’s Belief system, where an agent’s internal convictions shape its perception and ActionAppraisalSystem. The goal in both is for an agent’s personality to be an active, expressive force, not a passive character sheet.

• Animal Crossing Series: While simpler, Animal Crossing provides a masterclass in creating the feel of a living community through distinct villager personalities. Each villager has a defined personality type (e.g., Jock, Lazy, Snooty) that governs their dialogue, daily routines, and relationships with the player and other villagers. This approach informs ATET’s goal of making NPCs feel like part of a coherent social fabric, even when the player isn’t directly interacting with them.

Emergent Narrative

• The Power of Player-Driven Story: Games like The Sims are celebrated as “anecdote factories.” They provide a complex set of rules and systems, but no predefined plot, allowing unique, personal stories to emerge from the player’s interaction with the simulation. The drama of a Sim’s life—their loves, losses, and bizarre accidents—is an emergent narrative created by the interplay of their needs, traits, and relationships. This is the heart of ATET’s design philosophy, which aims to create a “story generator” where the most compelling quests are those that arise organically from the simulation’s tensions.

• Story Progression: A key feature of The Sims 3 which allowed non-player-controlled households in the neighborhood to live their lives autonomously; getting married, having children, and changing careers without direct player intervention. This created the sense of a living, evolving world. ATET’s Director AI and the concept of Factions evolving over time draw from this principle, aiming to create a Tapestry that feels alive and changes, even in areas the player isn’t currently observing.

Social Systems & Relationships

• Relationship as a System: In The Sims, relationships are a quantifiable system. Social interactions have positive or negative outcomes that build or decay relationship scores, unlocking new interaction possibilities. ATET abstracts this concept into its Belief and Memory systems, where an agent’s opinion of another is a collection of BeliefEntrys (is_trustworthy, is_dangerous) formed from the Memory of past interactions.

• Dating Sims & RPGs: The influence of dating sims, with their focus on dialogue choices and building specific social links, can be seen in many social simulation games. Series like Persona integrate deep social simulation into a role-playing game structure, where building relationships with characters provides tangible benefits in other areas of the game. This aligns with ATET’s goal of making interpersonal choices have significant mechanical and narrative consequences, where gaining an ally or making an enemy is a core part of progression.

ATET seeks to build upon these foundations by making the internal, subjective experience of the agent—its beliefs, memories, and traumas—the primary driver of these social and narrative systems. The goal is to take the emergent social drama of The Sims and ground it in a deep, explorable, and mutable philosophical framework.