Game Informer has released the first in a coming series of gaming articles titled "Beyond The Bits" that are designed to focus on some "unsung facets" involving video game creation. The first comes in the form of AI, artificial intelligence. This four page article featuring a number of respectable programmers from the gaming industry from a number of different genres, including Mortal Kombat's Ed Boon. Boon comments on the history of AI in the arcades as well as the current and future plans for Mortal Kombat's AI. Also included are smaller individual sections featuring most all video game genres.
Artificial Intelligence, or A.I., is one of the most important yet least understood aspects of modern game development. Depending on the type of game, developers may have entirely different goals when it comes to telling the computer how to play the game. Some say mimicking human intelligence is the goal. Others take a more pragmatic approach and say simply having the computer avoid doing too many stupid things is a solid benchmark.
“I think, initially, A.I. stuff was basically, I would describe it as simulating A.I.—kind of faking it,” says Boon. “You would program in kind of scripted sequences and randomly pick between them, and that kind of created the illusion of thought or something, as opposed to a random-number generator. Then, as the years have passed, certainly over the past 10 years, things have become more like an actual algorithm that scans the conditions of the game.”
“I think with a fighting game, the whole stigma is that you’re playing against a ladder, you’re playing against something that’s not as fun to play because it’s your one fighter against the other one fighter and there are far fewer variables involved,” Boon says. “So when A.I. is bad, it really stands out in a fighting game, and it also becomes more boring since people can predict things more. We’re definitely going to more toward the different classes of A.I. and personalities and whatnot as opposed to something that’s trying to make sure that you get through the first three fighters and not get through too many in a row—and have more of a personality with them.
To view more thoughts from Boon and many others, click here to read the entire article.
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