Experimental Artificial Intelligence for Computer Games: Latest Developments

Capstone Enhancement Project: Honours Program Capstone 

Thomas Bowersock

 

The history of computer games has been strongly intertwined with that of Artificial Intelligence (AI), with each of the fields benefiting from the other's development. The proposed research deals specifically with very recent work on using AI techniques to render the computer-gaming experience much more realistic and engaging. The deliverable will be a report containing a survey of literature.

 

This literature survey considers several AI techniques in recent games and how they can relate to our project in addition to the current gaming industry.  The examples shown include a method for guard and camera placement in stealth games, a story generation method for characters that perceive and assume, and a method for personalized gaming through facial expression recognition.  These techniques along with several others help demonstrate the complexity of AI in games as well as the problem with implementing realistic and convincing characters in a large game setting.