One of my few childhood dreams is to make video games. Standing before that is playing games. I find myself not different from many other gamers in ra

Stepping stones in AI

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2021-09-01 09:30:06

One of my few childhood dreams is to make video games. Standing before that is playing games. I find myself not different from many other gamers in rating what a good game is: you live in that game’s world and you are not alone in that world. Whether it is a first person shooting game, or role playing game, or real time strategy one, a great game is when the player is bathed in the storyline and the narrative, albeit stunning graphics and delicately crafted synth are not less as important. For I am a fan of history, when playing games with gameplay inspired from history I often find myself imagining how ancient people had lived, breathed, thought and fought in their own time. I want to be a part of the story and the story to have mine. This depends pretty much on non-player characters (NPC) of how they “live”, think, act, and interact with human players.

Any real-time strategy (RTS) gamers would agree with me that multi-player mode in which human-vs-human is, most of the time, more exciting than single-player mode in which human player is against computers. You may object my argument and I know there are great single-player campaigns that I have enjoyed too, however this opinion of mine has its rationales. Pro-gamers often find not so much rewarding as playing against computer players, built-in with classical Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques, than against their peers. Let alone levels of difficulty implemented are inadequate to challenge them, the experiences that a player feels from playing with computers are quite poor compared to playing with human. Reasoning lines, rational thinking, creative strategies, dirty tricks, so on and so forth, they would all contribute as a wondrous experience. Would it be thrilling to play a campaign of you leading your kingdom waging wars against heathens whose wicked king — a NPC simulated by game AI — with tons of tricks ready to stab you in the dark ? And with open-ended stories where your decisions from time to time drive the story line to turning points that never been designed (for example Choose Your Own Adventure books, or Bandersnatch TV series on Nexflix). What is missing here and now ? Game AI lacks a true character behind its decisions, a character that poses senses, mentality, reasoning, and emotion.