CMPE 540 Principles of Artificial Intelligence Fall

2005

CMPE 540 Principles of Artificial Intelligence

Term Paper

“Artificial Intelligence
in Computer Games”

by
Işık Barış Fidaner

Boğaziçi University

Işık Barış Fidaner 2005702532

CMPE 540 Principles of Artificial Intelligence Fall
2005

2005

Işık Barış Fidaner 2005702532

CMPE 540 Principles of Artificial Intelligence Fall
2005

Introduction

What is game AI?

In computer games, Artificial Intelligence generally means creating
computer players that can think rationally and also can act humanly.
First problems of game AI were solved by making challenging
computer players that play the best move. But as the games involved
more imagination, new problems emerged such as designing
humanly behaving and responding characters.
Games are traditionally played by a group of players. Few
examples are chess, hide-and-seek, football. In contrast, many
computer games are single-player. So, there is a problem of
interactivity in computer games. If the player perceives the game to
be a deterministic machine, giving predictable outcomes, it probably
will no longer feel like a game. To solve this problem, AI programmers
create rational agents in the game to give the illusion of human
players. If the player is faced by the challenge to win against
intelligent rational opponents, the game feels more like a game.
First computer games were digitized versions of regular board
games in which intelligent opponents were adequate for the
simulation of the real game. But the development of computer
graphics, sounds and input technologies opened the way to new
possibilities. Games began to have stories, plots, scenes and
characters. Unlike board games, which were relatively simple
abstractions, computer games began to create a constantly
complexifying realm of fantasy worlds. But of course the deepness of
these worlds not only depended on the imaginations of game and art
designers, but also the artificial hearts and minds of the characters in

Işık Barış Fidaner 2005702532

CMPE 540 Principles of Artificial Intelligence Fall
2005

the game. Since then, game AI has been required to model more and
more intelligent and realistic behaviour.

Işık Barış Fidaner 2005702532

CMPE 540 Principles of Artificial Intelligence Fall
2005

Applications of AI in games

There are many different applications of AI in games. Many game

genres, each having different set of AI problems, create a wide
spectrum of game AI. Despite its many application possibilities, AI
algorithms and technologies advance very slowly, compared to the
technologies in other aspects of games, such as graphics or physics.
Application of game AI involves giving life to artificially intelligent
agents in games. This task is easier to directly immitate human
behaviour, because the agents are only expected to be intelligent in
the context of the game.
There are some algorithms that proved to be useful and are widely
used in certain applications of game AI. These algorithms solved
some of the AI problems in games so well that some of these
problems are not considered in the AI area anymore. Problems like
collision detection, pathfinding, visibility detection in fact do require
artificially intelligent algorithms, but they are generally given
different names such as physics or tree searching. AI is mostly
related with higher order functions of the human brain, although it
contains every level of human intelligence from perception and
reasoning to deciding and behaving.
Many game genres exist, and there are several game roles that
require AI techniques. Enemies, allies of the player, other characters
or units, any rational agent in the game uses artificial intelligence.

Game roles
The game, with its set of rules and limited world, is like a
playground for testing different kinds of artificial intelligence. These
different AI problems are practically presented as game roles. These
game roles define certain areas of problems in game AI. Well-known

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CMPE 540 Principles of Artificial Intelligence Fall
2005

AI roles are tactical enemies, partners, support characters, strategic

opponents and units (1).

Tactical enemy
Tactical enemies are most frequently used in first-person (FPS) or
third-person (TPS) shooter games. The first well-known FPS is
Wolfenstein, and the most influential one is Doom, both by id
software. In first FPS games, tactical enemies simply waited standing
until they see the player. When they did, they started firing their guns
at the player. They sometimes stopped firing and walked around.
Generally called “monsters”, these creatures neither had a memory,
nor the motive to flee to survive. They did not have an internal
representation of the map, they simply belonged to the room they
were in. Maybe their mind can be compared to that of a mosquito,
having a gun instead of a procosbis, continuously coming and
disturbing the player.
As years passed, FPS games with better graphics were developed,
but the “monster AI” seemed the same. But there was another effort
to simulate computer players, in other words “bots”, in multiplayer
FPS games. As the CPU power increased, and the players started
giving more importance to intelligent enemies, these bots'
intelligence advanced further. They became real tactical enemies,
hitting, running away, hiding and sniping. This is a result of new
algoritms applied. New bots have an internal map of the area. They
behave according to their evaluations of certain points in the map in
terms of visibility, safety and other abstract criteria (2).

Partner
Modeling partner characters require coordination with the player.
Generally, partner characters are simple. They only follow the player
as he goes, and shoot nearby enemies. This implementation only

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CMPE 540 Principles of Artificial Intelligence Fall
2005

requires intelligence for pathfinding and detecting enemies. A more

complex modeling can be allowing player to issue orders to his
partners.
Partnership can also be applied to enemies. To generalize, it is
squad / team behaviour. Team behaviour is implemented in two
ways. In the first solution, each character behaves independently, but
they also look around and if they see a teammate, they behave
accordingly. Team behaviour is a result of interactions between the
individual members (3). In the second implementation, AI thinks not
like a member, but the leader. Knowledge of members are
centralized and a global planning is made, which allows more
organized tactics (4).

Support character
Support characters in a game are similar to the minor roles in a
movie. In the adventure and role-playing games, the player generally
interacts with the support characters to follow the storyline of the
game flow. These characters have preprogrammed responses to the
questions player is allowed to ask. They do not use very sophisticated
AI, but better support characters can be modelled with more
advanced techniques. For example, non-player characters (NPC) in a
game may know about some events and tell them to each other, they
may have some attitutes towards the player or other characters in
the game (5).

Strategic opponent
Strategic opponents are the most obvious and first use of game AI.
The player is challenged by an opponent, which is in fact an
algorithm. In board games like chess, planning and predicting can
easily be used. In probabilistic games and games that the player has
more freedom, it becomes very difficult to look ahead and act

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CMPE 540 Principles of Artificial Intelligence Fall
2005

accordingly. The game being real-time, puts a time constraint and

makes the task even more difficult.
Strategic decisions are deeper than most other types of decisions.
In games with perfect information like chess, direct reasoning is
possible. But uncertainty and lack of information makes it harder to
implement an intelligently deciding agent. In many strategy games,
the programmers pick the easy way and "cheat", meaning that game
AI is given more information than what is allowed in the game. This
really makes more challenging AI but it can also annoy the player. In
a better game, the player must be able to "deceive" his opponent.
This is only possible if reasoning under uncertainty is implemented.
Computer player may "believe" in some game information, but not
know for sure. Bayesian Networks (6) or Dempster-Schafer Theory (7)
can be used for this kind of reasoning.

Unit
Units in first strategy games did not require AI. They just did
what you told them to do. But as strategy games began to involve
more complex issues such as ambushing or resource gathering, units
became simple finite state machines. Also the real-time animations
made it possible to create more lively characters.
In some "god" games, units are not player's units at all, they are
instead independent agents. For example, in Dungeon Keeper, you
did not say your creatures what to do. They just hung around,
attacked if they saw an enemy. You could change the placement of a
creature, or you could get into one and control him seeing through
his eyes. In Black & White, the player even cannot control the people,
he can only change placement of a person or give a profession to a
person. Other than that, the computer people decide what to do.
There is also the player's creature, which has more freedom, except

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CMPE 540 Principles of Artificial Intelligence Fall
2005

that the player may control it using a leash. The Sims is another
example where artificial people have "free will" in a limited scale.

Conclusion
Computer games and AI research are like two sides of one medal.
Fruits of AI research gives life to computer games, and computer
games provide new challenges for future AI researches. But of course
there is much different aspects between these two. For example,
games are industry-oriented whereas AI research is not. AI research
mainly focuses on the optimum and best solutions, whereas games
require more practical solutions.
In the future, as game characters get more and more intelligent,
games will get more interesting and more realistic. New AI tecniques
also may create new and more "intelligent" genres of games.
Everyday human relations and emotions may be used more in
gameplay. Games may be able to learn from the player, and behave
accordingly. Games may enlarge themselves by automatically
generating maps, monsters and other game elements.
Game AI is like a young tree, with many fresh branches open to
development. Leaves of the tree are wide open to the light of AI
research.

Işık Barış Fidaner 2005702532

CMPE 540 Principles of Artificial Intelligence Fall
2005

References

1. J. Laird, M. van Lent, "Human-Level AI's Killer Application:

Interactive Computer Games," Artificial Intelligence Magazine,
v.22, n.2, Summer 2001, pp. 15-25.

2. L. Liden (Valve), "Strategic and Tactical Reasoning with

Waypoints", AI Game Programming Wisdom, Ed. Steve Rabin,
Charles River Media, 2002.

3. W. Sterren (CGF-AI), "Squad Tactics: Team AI and Emergent

Maneuvers", AI Game Programming Wisdom, Ed. Steve Rabin,
Charles River Media, 2002.

4. W. Sterren (CGF-AI), "Squad Tactics: Planned Maneuvers", AI Game

Programming Wisdom, Ed. Steve Rabin, Charles River Media,
2002.

5. G. Alt, K. King (Surreal Software), "A Dynamic Reputation System

Based on Event Knowledge", AI Game Programming Wisdom, Ed.
Steve Rabin, Charles River Media, 2002.

6. G. Alt, K. King (Surreal Software), "A Dynamic Reputation System

Based on Event Knowledge", AI Game Programming Wisdom, Ed.
Steve Rabin, Charles River Media, 2002.

7. P. Tozour (Ion Storm Austin), "Introduction to Bayesian Networks

and Reasoning Under Uncertainty", AI Game Programming
Wisdom, Ed. Steve Rabin, Charles River Media, 2002.

Schaeffer, Jonathan e Herik, H. Jaap van den, 'Games, computers, and

artificial intelligence', Artificial Intelligence 134:1-2 (January 2002),
1–7.

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CMPE 540 Principles of Artificial Intelligence Fall
2005

S. Woodcock, “Game AI: The State of the Industry,” Game Developer,

Aug. 1999, pp. 34-43.

R. Evans, "The Future of AI In Games: A Personal View," Game

Developer, Aug 2001, pp. 46-49.

E. Adams, "In Defense of Academe," Game Developer, Nov 2002, pp.

55-56.

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