Discussions on Game AI

On Tuesday at AiGameDev.com, the floor is open to everyone! Swing by and post a comment…

Topics may vary from week to week, but include:

• Industry trends and gossip.

• The future of artificial intelligence and game design.

• Technology, how to maximize it and when to avoid it.

If you have any suggestions for discussion topics, don’t hesitate and send them in!

This week’s developer discussion on AiGameDev.com is introduced by Dave Mark from Intrinsic Algorithm. Let him know how many tools you use for your game AI and why; post a comment below or in the forums.

I’ve never been the type of guy who can spend all weekend in the garage or the workshop. I […]

For this week’s developer discussion on AiGameDev.com, Dave Mark looks into the recent best-seller Grand Theft Auto 4. Let him know how you think the AI could be improved by posting a comment below!

Let’s face it. There is only one game on the radar these past few weeks. The release of the latest entertainment […]

Dave Mark is back this week to introduce AiGameDev.com’s regular developer discussion. When he’s not working on lucrative database contracts, he spends his time developing AI over at Intrinsic Algorithm. Post a comment below and let him know how you think testing game AI code compares to SQL statements!

When I started to write […]

A few months ago on AiGameDev.com, in the interview with Dmitriy Iassenev about S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s AI, the subject of time allocation for game developers came up. With all this talk of next-gen AI, you’d expect that developers are spending more and more of their time working on features that would help improve the high-level intelligence […]

This week’s developer discussion on AiGameDev.com focuses on a favorite topic of Dave Mark — the AI guru at Intrinsic Algorithm. Let him know what you think about the ideas in his article by posting a comment below!

Back when I was young, when games were played with paper and pencil, a “die roll” actually […]

This week’s discussion on AiGameDev.com is introduced by this article from Dave Mark, the AI guru behind Intrinsic Algorithm. Feel free to answer at least one of his open questions in a comment below!

Chris Hecker is quite a character. Neil Kirby passed on to me that he once heard Ernest Adams (admittedly another character […]

This week’s developer discussion on AiGameDev.com was written by Dave Mark, the AI guru at Intrinsic Algorithm. Be sure to let him know what you think and post a comment below!

Back in 2003, before the Electronics Entertainment Expo was neutered, I attended a panel discussion anchored by Peter Molyneux (Fable, Black & White), David […]

This week’s developer discussion is based on a topic introduced by Dave Mark, the behavioral mathematics wizard behind Intrinsic Algorithm. Let him know if you find smart mistakes in his post by commenting below!

Since I began writing this column for AiGameDev.com a month ago, Alex and I have occasionally spent an amusingly large amount […]

This week’s developer discussion at AiGameDev.com is based on an article originally titled “Not Now… I’m Thinking! Using Human Reaction Times to Build Better AI Responses” written by Dave Mark from Intrinsic Algorithm. Be sure to let him know you can take fast action by posting a comment below!

As AI algorithms get more complicated […]

This article was written by Dave Mark, CEO and designer at Intrinsic Algorithm. Let him know what you think and post a comment below!

With this week’s discussion, I am tapping back into the outflow of the 2008 Game Developers Conference. One of the lectures, “Playing to Lose: AI and Civilization,” was given by Soren Johnson, […]

This article introducing AiGameDev.com’s weekly developer discussion was written by Dave Mark, the AI guru behind Intrinsic Algorithm. Let him know what you think and post a comment below!

The Game Developers Conference has always been known as a place to go learn things about the industry and the technology. It is also a prime arena […]

The Game Developer’s Conference 2008 is now over, and while those who attended spend the rest of the week recovering and catching up, the rest of us can start piecing together the important bits of information that came out of the event.
Along those lines, I just noticed a report from the session about Assassin’s Creed, […]

This week’s developer discussion on AiGameDev.com is sponsored by 2K Boston, formerly Irrational Games, who developed BioShock and S.W.A.T. 4 — among others. The studio is looking for Senior AI Programmers (and people for other positions too), so if you feel you’re qualified be sure to contact them!
John Abercrombie, who was the Lead AI […]

One thing that’s obvious from looking into the AI source code of different game engines is that there are many ways to structure a codebase! Certainly, a sensible engine structure is a basic requirement to build a game, but anything beyond that is a matter of personal preference.
This week’s developer discussion on AiGameDev.com is […]

This year’s conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment will take place from the 22nd-24th October. Christian Darken, program chair this year, wrote in to announce this year’s AIIDE call for papers that runs until 22nd April, which was also mentioned in the regular roundup a few weeks ago.
AIIDE has become an important […]

In the early days of game development, bedroom coders could easily build entire games on their own. Then, when teams started getting bigger, designers would be responsible for coming up with ideas and programmers would implement them. But since the advent of data-driven engines, it’s much less clear what everyone’s responsibility should be.
This […]

AiGameDev.com is looking for sponsors to provide prizes (e.g. books, T-Shirts, software, games) for the best contributions to its weekly developer discussions. If you’re interested in trying this out for a month, don’t hesitate to contact me.

For most game developers, whether working in AAA studios or on independent games, finding a balance between design […]

Why has the mod scene become less active over the years? Have next-gen games grown so big that the sheer size of their codebase prevents independent game developers and AI enthusiasts from experimenting with new ideas?
This week’s developer discussion is based on a comment by Chris Dirks on Getting Started with AI and Programming […]

The first developer discussion of the new year on AiGameDev.com is a fantastic opportunity to discuss trends for the upcoming twelve months. What do you think will be hot, or not?

Screenshot 1: Trends in artificial intelligence and game development.

Ever wonder why two small Channel tunnels run in parallel? There’s a simple reason; the French and the English miscalculated the meeting point in the middle (due to differences in Metric vs. Imperial measurements) and ended digging both tunnels separately next to each other. Or at least, that’s a version of the story […]

This developer discussion is about reusable AI, including the underlying engine and the logic itself. Does using middleware, or even sharing AI scripts and data across different games mean that they become mass-produced simulations without a soul?

Most AI programmers I know (myself included) have a love-hate relationship with priority-levels for AI behaviors. Developers often use them reluctantly — assuming there must be a better solution out there. These priorities are the subject of this week’s developer discussion.
Basically, the idea is to assign priority levels to every AI behavior to […]

Evolutionary algorithms (EA) fall into the category of general optimization strategies, which can be used to find approximate solutions to problems given a measure of fitness. Modern game developers certainly uses specific optimization techniques heavily, but evolutionary algorithms still haven’t found a regular place in the development process.

The applicability of computational intelligence and neural networks (NN) in games is a touchy subject here at AiGameDev.com, and in game developer forums generally. This is particularly interesting because everyone seems to be approaching the issue from a different direction.

Everyone makes mistakes. From the seasoned veterans on big budget titles to the independent developers working on their first game, some slipups are more costly than others. In most cases though, there’s something to learn from!
Here’s your chance to share your wisdom to help others avoid the same pitfalls, or write down […]

This week’s discussion on AiGameDev.com is targeted towards the gamer’s spirit inside you! Remember you have another two days to write your interesting comments to win T-Shirt prizes…
Here’s the topic for you to run with; what are your best and most memorable “AI moments” in any game? Specifically, think in the following lines:

Interacting […]

In the 1970s, the roboticist Masahiro Mori speculated about a threshold of realism up to which humans empathize with robots. However, when the robot’s appearance and movement improve beyond that, humans are repulsed instead. This problem is known as the Uncanny Valley. But as the realism increases further, reactions slowly match human […]

This week’s developer discussion is about technological improvements in the game development industry, following up on last week’s discussion about visible progress of in-game AI.
Remember, you can win an AiGameDev.com T-Shirt at the end of the month for interesting comments, so join in by posting below!

Do you think professional developers have made significant technical progress […]

It’s a bit of a controversial topic lately, so it seems perfect for this week’s developer discussion! Remember, you can win an AiGameDev.com T-Shirt at the end of the month for interesting comments, so join in by posting below!
Games have been around for quite a few decades already. Over the years, there have […]

The developer discussion this week is about the missing ingredient in game AI. How can we improve the quality of AI in mainstream games? If you had to focus on one ingredient, what would it be?
Click here to join the conversation by posting a comment, and stand the chance of winning a T-shirt […]

This week’s developer discussion is all about fuzzy logic. Click here to join the conversation by posting a comment.
Have you used fuzzy logic before? If so, how did you apply it to your game AI? If not, why didn’t you use fuzzy logic?
Nice and Crisp
There’s no argument here: discrete logic is the […]

What are examples of actor behaviors that impress you in a game?
This is an open question to all of you, so here’s chance for you to win a T-shirt from AiGameDev with your interesting comments!
Right now, I’m busy working on a Game::AI++, which almost ready for a closed beta (join the mailing list for notification). […]

Creating smart actors in general is quite a challenge. Handling the latest generation of hardware and the increased expectations is particularly tough.
But what’s the most difficult from your perspective? Let everyone know what you think is the hardest part about making game AI. Post a comment below!