This is a tread to talk about games where AI / behaviour is a major gamepoint / the main focus of the game. Best example I can think of is Nero 2.0 which can be found here: http://nerogame.org/ In this game you have to "train" robots to survive in an area fight. You do that by building a training area and deciding what behaviour should get them points. For example they get points every time they hit a target (you can also give points for avoiding fire, going to a rally point, staying together, spreading out and some more). Now you spawn a number of robots which have random behaviour. The ones who hit the target get points (in our example). The ones with the least points get eliminated after a certain time period. The best ones go to the next round and form the "seeds" of a new generation of robots with mutated behaviour, which get´s tested again. After a while this can evolve to fairly complex thinking on the robots side. For example I once had a training area where I wanted to teach them how to take cover, so I created a turret which could fire at the spawn point and a wall slightly to the right and left of the spawn point and punished getting hit, so the robots just had to get the idea that they are safe behind the wall. After a few generations they took cover right after spawning and weren´t hit anymore. So I went to test it in actual combat. What I didn´t anticipate was that the robots didn´t learn that they were save behind walls, but that they were save by LOOKING at walls. In training they allways faced the turret and then went behind the walls with sidesteps, leading them to face the wall at the end. They acosiated that with savety. So evertime they were faced with enemy fire they jsut searched the nearest wall and stuck their face to it, becoming easy prey for the enemy. I felt sorry for the guys. Anyway, that´s the kind of game I am looking for. Other examples would be Black and White (the creature AI), Roboforge/Carnage Heart (you had to design robots and program their AI), Creatures. Special mention goes to 3D Virtual Creature Evolution, a programm which simulates the evolution of an entire body and it´s movment, which can lead to VERY interesting designs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Virtual_Creature_Evolution Do you guys know any more games/programs like this?
I've played a couple of games in the past where you could program robots and put them into an arena (some really complex arenas) to fight it out to the death with other people's programmed robots. You could download other people's designs to test your AI against theirs. One was called (I think) Omega, and it was actually released in stores way back when, for the PC. The other was an old shareware game (I can't recall it's name). There was another that simulated dueling computer viruses. I can't recall what it was. Again, you'd write a program, and put it up against a program that someone else had written. But the arena was 1-d computer memory, not an actual 2-d map. I wish I could remember what those other games were called... /edit btw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_(video_game)
BTW, there's this really fun (at least to me) board game called "Robo Rally". It's not everybody's cup of tea, but it appealed to me because I've been a computer programmer in the past. Essentially, you use cards to program your robot, like 5 cards per turn, and each player reveals one card at a time and you determine what everyone does in a kind of simultaneous movement. Part of the fun is that the arena itself can be very dangerous, with conveyor belts, pits, machines that will crush or push your robot, etc. What often happens is that you program a command to your robot, assuming it will be in one location, and it turns out because of miscalculation, or interference by a different robot, that it's not where you thought it was, and so you could be sending your robot headlong into a pit or a crusher or into the line of fire of another robot. I think it takes the mindset of a programmer or at least, someone with good logic skills to appreciate it: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18/roborally
Could you mean Robot Arena? You can take direct control of the robots but you have to program them first, I think. Other than that there´s Robowar, which is very old (1992). Also for those interested there´s bug brain, which I have yet to try myself: http://www.biologic.com.au/bugbrain/ Edit: I can´t try out Bugbrain, since it won´t run on my 64 bit System. The few videos that exist of it make it look quite interesting, though.
Omega actually predates that (1989). Then again, I'm kinda on the old side, at least in video game years lol. I loved the game (Omega) at the time, and have long hoped that someone would either remake it or create something along the same lines. Omega was simple enough that a non-programmer (at least one with some propensity towards logical thinking) could pick it up and stat playing with it. Some of the programs I remember seeing could get mathematically complex, with trigonometric equations to calculate intercepts and trajectories and so on. But they really didn't have to be quite so complex. It was nice though, that the ability to do so was there, if you wanted it.
