The end of the year is always a good time to reflect on the games that came out in the last twelve months — and particularly those with great artificial intelligence. Of course, December is a great time for awards too, and who better to give out Game AI awards than the leading community for artificial intelligence in games on the internet.
Welcome to the 2nd Annual AiGameDev.com Awards for Game AI, where the best games of the year are nominated and voted for by professionals, enthusiasts, and researchers in artificial intelligence for games. Similarly to last year, here’s what we have planned for the new few weeks:
THIS WEEK — Post your nominations for the games you think are worthy of an award. Either write a comment below, on the forums, or email in your suggestions to andrew at AiGameDev.com.
NEXT WEEK — The most popular nominations are selected, and voting begins in The Game AI Forums. You’ll need to sign-up before you can participate, to prevent flooding of votes!
The winners will be announced on December 30th, but here’s how the whole process will work…
Categories
There are four categories this year’s nominations.
- Best AI in a Mainstream Game
- What was the best artificial intelligence in a big budget game, published via the traditional distribution channels?
- Best AI in an Independent Game
- Which game written by a small team of developers, either web based or available on PC/Mac, had the best AI?
- Technical Innovation in Game AI
- Who had the best ideas and technology for 2008, including middleware vendors or games listed above?
- Most Influential Published Research
- Which white paper, book or in-depth article about game AI has & will influence the field most?
All the items you nominate of course must have been released after the 1st January 2008 and before 31st December 2008.
Criteria
Remember, you’re giving an award for the best artificial intelligence in a game. This means it must be a balance of two things:
Entertainment — The AI in a game isn’t supposed to behave perfectly; in fact it’s often supposed to make mistakes in a convincing way. So, are the non-player characters (NPC) or non-character AIs fun to play with or against?
Intelligence & Believability — Do the in-game actors fit in with the design and story? It’s not purely about smarts, but it helps!
Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive, on the contrary! The best games each year successfully use intelligent behaviors to create a fun experience for the players. Stay tuned for this year’s best game AI.
Get started and post your nominations in a comment below, or email them in to andrew at AiGameDev.com…
