Luke Dicken@LukeD

Advances in Game AI

Who Am I

•Director of the International Game Developers Association•http://igda.org

•Head of the IGDA Foundation•http://foundation.igda.org

•Former PhD student in Game AI•Formerish gamedev and consultant in AI

•Future Senior Data Scientist at Zynga SF

Recent Events

What is AI?

What is Game AI?

Destiny

•3.2 million daily active users•$500 million total development cost•Mixed reviews•Personally, see this is as a very raw/distilled set of group challenges with loot.

•But AI-wise, there’s very little of interest•Highlighted BECAUSE the AI is so poor

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Shadows of Mordor

•Monolith Games and WB game•Lord of the Rings license•Very reminiscent of Arkham style Batman•Perhaps with a bit of Assassin’s Creed mixed in

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Why We Care

•The melee portion of the game is interesting because of the way it is stage managed.

•Divide the player’s local area into zones and control what NPCs are allowed into the zones

•Technique became known as “Belgian AI” due to the diagrams being drawn to represent it

Belgian AI

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Belgian AI

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Belgian AI Mechanics

•Each NPC is assigned a “weight” and grid has a carrying capacity

•An NPC can only enter the grid provided carrying capacity exceeds that NPCs weight

•When an NPC enters the grid, we subtract the weight from the carrying capacity

•Provides a maximal load, independent of NPC type

More Belgian AI

•We can also capture turn taking with this system.

•Each NPC on the grid has an amount of “energy”, different attacks use up different amount of energy

•When energy is depleted, step off the grid to allow others to take your place

Belgian AI

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Further Belgian AI

•We can use similar energy mechanics to prevent all NPCs on the grid from making heavy attacks all at once

•Player is expected to be moving around, not statically mashing 1-0 keys•NPCs that end up within the grid should be allowed attacks of opportunity, not forced to move outside the edges of the “arena”.

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The Best Bit of SoM

What’s Involved in Nemesis?

MetagameDuels and Power Struggles

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MetagameMemory of Past Encounters

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IngameProfile-based combat

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Metagame to IngamePower Rating == Combat Level

Assets!

The Secret of Barks

Advanced AI in Games

•Great “AI” usually isn’t•Good enough is often good enough•But we need to do better!

Challenges of Game AI

Limited Computation

Managing Frustration

Maintaining Immersion

My PhD Research

•Bridging the gap between Reactive and Deliberative AI systems

•Leveraging the resources available during development

•The Integrated Influence Architecture was the outcome•Makes short-term decisions in the context of long-term objectives

•Aim is to design good NPC companion characters

Game AI Beyond NPCs

•Scenario Management•Content Creation•Storytelling

Final Thoughts

•Game AI is a strange field•“Advances” are more about finding ways to do clever things with existing technology

•Less about adopting or inventing new approaches•Compared to traditional AI, its a much more difficult problem•How do you optimise “fun”?

•There’s significantly fewer resources available than in many other AI scenarios

Contact

•@LukeD

•luke@lukedicken.com

•http://lukedicken.com