Competitive bots are becoming increasingly important for MOBA-style games, helping provide a friendly environment for practice as well as a smooth learning curve. In this interview with AI Programmer Paul Dziazio, you'll find out how the default bots were implemented in Lua, details of the API, debug visualizations, and lessons learned from the process.

Did you know you could build a constraint propagator in a weekend? You could use it for many things, including populating levels based on specific designer constraints! This tutorial with Leif Foged and Ian Horswill will elucidate the topic, with underlying algorithms or tips and tricks for successfully applying constraint satisfaction to other domains of games.

How can chatbot technology can bridge the gap between meticulously authored signal-response dialog and more improvisational chatting based on crowd source data? Learn about the kind of algorithms and technology that's necessary to pull off real-time search in text databases of millions of entries at runtime on a mobile device, drawing from experiences of Angry Dude or Pepito (iOS), or a Skyfall-branded (James Bond) promotional text game.

Built by an experienced team, indie survival game DON'T STARVE innovates on many fronts in gameplay and design. In particular, it generates procedural worlds by first creating a set of tasks/goals for the player first (i.e. this game's narrative) and laying them out in the space afterwards (i.e. the game's world). You'll find out how this is done in this interview, as well as the Lua-based behavior trees that control the game's creatures. Finally, you'll hear about the design and iteration process at Klei Entertainment that enables such innovations!

Certain designs afford specific AI architectures. In the case of Skulls of the Shogun, this resulted in a hierarchical system that makes strategic decisions while at the same time reacting to the player. This is achieved by combining a state-based approach at the top and compartmentalized utility for comparing and selecting subsets of actions. Few games have their AI explicitly (and positively) mentioned in reviews, so watch this interview with Borut Pfeifer to find out how 17-BIT Studios achieved it!

Multi-player online battle arenas (aka. MOBAs) provide huge challenges for human players as well as computer-controlled bots. In this interview with the team behind AWESOMENAUTS, you'll hear how the AI was built to support 2D-based platforming gameplay. Specifically, how the bots were implemented using a large decision tree, how the path network search at the high-level supports reactive movement at the low-level, and an overview of a stepping debugger and corresponding in-game visualizations.

Mobile devices are particularly well suited to automating board games, in particular allowing the player to compete against computer opponents! In this interview about critically-acclaimed iPad strategy game BATTLE OF THE BULGE, you'll hear how a utility-based AI was designed to support different personalities for the enemy commanders. Miguel Nieves discusses his secrets to making utility work reliably, as well as places where it needed other approaches. Finally, you'll pick up some tips for building AI that's efficient enough to run on mobile.

Bringing together a wide variety of different gameplay genres into one game is a challenge in itself, but building AI that can support everything from gunplay to melee, pedestrian movement and driving is even more so! In this interview with Lead Gameplay & AI Programmer Eric Tong, you'll hear about critically acclaimed action game Sleeping Dogs. In particular, how are the navigation meshes built for a large scale city, how cover is generated and integrated into animation, and how the pedestrians are spawned and managed convincingly!

Bots are becoming increasingly important for multiplayer games as both a training tool and to provide a friendlier environment to play in. In this interview, you'll find out about the bot AI in blockbuster title CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 2. You'll learn about the challenges and solutions of building bots that can play against or alongside human players! You'll also hear about the underlying technology such as the navigation and integration with scripting.

In this interview with Miguel Cepero, you'll find out what it takes to generate entire believable worlds, from the terrain to vegetation and even buildings. You'll see how simulation can help increase the uality of trees and forests, and why voxel representations help overall.