Description

Artificial Intelligence in Computer Games
Işık Barış Fidaner

Purpose of Game AI
Games involve interaction (with whom?)
We need

Challenging enemies like Deep Blue who won against Kasparov

Believable characters like in a movie scripted on the run
AI roles and game genres
Tactical enemies appear mainly in action games
Units and strategic opponents are main roles of a strategy game
Partner characters are important in role playing games (RPG)
Support characters are used in adventure games and RPGs

Action games
First were 2D games like platform games, shoot’em up
Then came 3D first person or third person shooter games
First enemies were simple “monsters”
Then “bots” were created as a simulation of human players
Not all action games are “shooters”, e.g. Thief is a “first person sneaker” game
Pacman (1980)
Silkworm (1989)
Wolfenstein 3D (1992)
Inside a monster’s mind
Thief (1998)
Counter-Strike Source (2004)
How do bots evaluate the map
Strategy Games
First were turn based, like board games
Then, real time strategy games appeared
Two main roles
Strategic opponents
Units
Civilization (1991)
How units find their path: A*
Age of Empires II (1999)
Formations of marching units
Strategic reasoning of your opponent
Reasoning under uncertainty
Artificial life
Games that involve simulated living beings
In these games, creatures
have simulated desires, feelings
try to meet their needs
sometimes learn from experience, or maybe they only seem to be
SimCity (1989)
Creatures (1996)
The Sims (2000)
Dungeon Keeper (1997)
Black & White (2001)
B&W: The creature’s mind
Adventure and role playing games
Support characters lead the player the way through the game’s story
An intelligent “support character” must
be strictly consistent with the story
at the same time be flexible enough to give alternative responses to player’s different choices
Fate of Atlantis (1992)
Grim Fandango (1998)