(or basically AI)

M. Çağkan Uludağlı

Challenge the Player Challenge the Player Not Do Dumb Things Not Do Dumb Things Be Unpredictable Be Unpredictable Assist Storytelling Assist Storytelling Create a Living World Create a Living World

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Without setting up a worthy adversary of some sort, a game becomes unchallenging and therefore too easy to defeat.

In a classic arcade game like Robotron: 2084 or in a first-person shooter like Doom, the challenge mostly comes from players being overwhelmed by adversaries and by the powerful abilities those adversaries have.

the AI in an RTS has to do everything players do and seem smart while doing it.

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Regardless of the game type, the AI must present players with an interesting challenge. Without good AI, a game may become similar to playing chess with your (much) younger brother: somewhat pointless.

The difference is, when you play chess with your kid brother, you hope to teach him the nuances of the game so that one day he may become a good player. You may also enjoy socializing with him, making an otherwise pointless game of chess worth it.

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Nothing breaks a player’s suspension of disbelief more than when an AI agent fails to navigate around a small obstacle such as a fire hydrant or a tree.

For the game to avoid becoming a laughingstock, the game’s AI must have a solid mastery of what seems obvious to human players.

AI stupidity is acceptable relative to the type of world the computer game is supposed to represent.

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Mortal Kombat (video)Deus Ex (video)Rome Total War (video)Crysis (videos:)Street Fighter

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Players want the AI to surprise them, to try to defeat them in ways they had not anticipated.

Games can surprise players with their predetermined story, or what sort of environment the next level will take place in, or what the big boss robot will look like. But if the AI can also contribute to this unpredictably, the game gains replayability.

Pure randomness is often a really good way to keep players interested in the AI, to make them wonder, “What’s it trying to do?” when in fact it is just being random.

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You must remember that each human being is different and that many humans are known to act irrationally for any number of reasons. That irrationality keeps life interesting.

If players are battling humans or human-like monsters/aliens in a computer game, a little irrationality will result in making the opponents seem that much more real, believable, and interesting to engage.

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-Fuzzy Logic: A type of AI that introduces some degree of randomness into the decision making process. This means that, given the exact same inputs, an AI agent will make different decisions based on chance.

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Game AI can be used to further a game’s story.

Even the adversaries that players might fight in a battle can be adjusted to aid in the storytelling process.

Damage Incorporated – psychological profile of each teammate

The Suffering – non-playable character Ernesto

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GTA Series

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AI Programmers want from their AI agents equal footing with the players.

AI agents unfair advantages over the player to keep the game fun and playable.

Beating an enemy which is hard to overcome, is more fun for actual players.

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The point again is that the AI must never overshadow the gameplay, and it must never distract the development team from the true goal of the project: to make a fun, playable game.

If the AI is really very sophisticated but, as a result, the game is unplayable or extremely frustrating, players are not going to remark on the intelligence of the game’s combatants. AI and gameplay are too closely entwined for one to succeed if the other fails.

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Catch-22 situation: coordination problem between programmers and level designers.

The designer and AI programmer must trust each other such that when one of them tells the other something needs to change, they believe the other and make it happen.

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Spending a lot of time on overly sophisticated AI systems will directly take time away from other tasks that desperately need work.

The AI for a game might not be a respectable, academic-quality artificial intelligence.

The AI for a game only needs to be good enough to challenge players while not appearing overly foolish in its actions.

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Half-Life

Starcraft

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Dead Space Series (video)

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4/19/2013Artificial Intelligence