Console Wars

Note: The statistics presented in this article are based on Consumer Behavior Report

Gaming consoles have become very prominent in today’s world. They are prime means of entertainment. Most of the recent consoles are a conglomeration of other features like movie player, audio player, photo viewer, extended memory, and many more apart from mere gaming. Gaming consoles have an advantage over PC games. Especially with ever-growing technology, the quality and gaming experience is changing dynamically. More realistic games are coming with impeccable graphics both in PC as well as in consoles. However there are more software and hardware upgrades in PC, people seldom track the technical advances and are quite apprehensive about affording new accessories.

Apparently Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo dominate and continue to dominate the gaming market with their consoles and other accessories. However, in the near future, there is a significant year-over-year increase in demand for Nintendo and Sony video game consoles. In America, Wii is in a short supply making it an even more highly sought after commodity. Recent console gaming trends incorporate high-end graphics with motion sensor technology. According to the reports, Nintendo Wii is the leading contender in 2007′s console war. In a survey, around 45% of people say they prefer Nintendo Wii over other consoles. However, there is also an increasing demand for Microsoft Xbox and its supporting games despite the decrease in its demand by 15% in 2007.

Interestingly, video game selection remains a key factor when shopping for video game consoles. 26% say that game selection is the attribute of most importance when deciding to purchase a gaming console while 22% say that it is pricing that matters most.

24% think that ease of use is critical whereas 23% feel high-definition graphics and playback are important to buy a console. Only, 5% people say that online capability is their priority.

Most of the gamers, on an average, prefer to play animated/children-friendly games. 31% of the male respondents say first-person shooting and war games interest them the most. In addition, sports games have good demand in the market and online multi-player games always fascinate players.

The PlayStation 3 console is sold at a higher price and boasts a Blue-ray DVD for quality graphics and a high-speed cell processor that appeals to hardcore gamers. The Wii is reasonably priced and offers a range of games and a user-friendly controller for the casual gamer. The overall pricing for consoles is trending downward; however, limited supply has been driving prices upward over the last 6 months. The top three popular consoles were launched within a year and range in average price between $200 and $500.

Decreasing trend in video game console prices is good news for hardcore and casual gamers. 71% of online shoppers are still spending more than $50 on video game consoles, games and other related accessories in holiday season. Majority of the online consumers are looking for low price range video game systems. Consoles continue to be a popular purchase among other franchise. This led to a phenomenal growth in the number of gamers around the world.

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                                                                                               Written by Anirudh

7 steps to beat a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game

Real-Time Strategy games certainly offer a plethora of opportunities to learn to manage resources and time through complex interfaces consisting of unit heads, base buildings, militia, air units, etc. In a typical RTS, a player learns to utilize resources in an effective manner so as to infiltrate troops into enemy territory or defend the base region. Indubitably, the player needs to loose the game umpteen numbers of times to come out with a unique strategy to beat a level. Assuming that the difficulty level in an RTS is set to the highest, the following tips may be useful to beat an RTS.

Note: These tips won’t guarantee victory in an RTS game, but will surely increase the possibility of winning the game.

Step 1: Make constructive use of AI – AI, in any RTS, is predictable. Try and understand the patterns of unit behavior, directions of attack, and other computer responses. Make decisions based on smart inferences that you draw from your understanding of AI.

Step 2: RESPOND, don’t REACT – When you are playing an RTS, you are bound to fail many times. Most often, players tend to get emotional after each failure and take many thoughtless decisions during the game play that constitute to failure. Consider every trial anew. Learn from your losses and don’t repeat tactics that didn’t work.

Step 3: Balance the resources – Most of the players focus on building complete base units, or constructing all the buildings, or spending more time on attacking enemy buildings, or having complete defense, etc. None of these strategies are proven to be successful. Hence it is important to have a balanced use of resources. Allocate your resources in an effective, efficient and optimal manner.

Step 4: Destroy enemy building units – If there is a time constraint, it is always preferable to destroy all the units who construct buildings, like repairmen, villagers, woodcutters, etc. This will not only halt the resource acquisition for the enemy forces to make their buildings or militia but also give you enough time to plan your defense and constructive offense.

Step 5: Use Scouting tactic – This is a necessary strategy to adopt. The sooner you explore the map the better you can position your buildings. So use scouting units to spy on enemy territories.

Step 6: Be smart and agile – Don’t panic when your units are outmanned. Preserve your basic building units and protect your base building. Have a considerable defense mechanism to protect research centers. Build the houses and research centers at corners or edges.

Step 7: Use ‘Tower Crush’ tactic – This is found to be one of the most effective techniques to win an RTS. Place your watchtowers/attack towers near the resources of enemy territories at the beginning of the game. This will not only destroy the enemy building units but also attack enemy buildings and will increase your possibility to win the game.

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                                                                                        Written by Anirudh

Movies vs. Games: Congruence or Dichotomy?

Tony Stark needs to escape from the captivity of terrorists because his captors want him to assemble a missile for them but instead he creates an armored suit and a means to prevent his death from the shrapnel left in his chest by the attack. He comes out of the prison and finds that he is surrounded by many more terrorists. Terrorists keep shooting at him and once they have stopped shooting, Tony says “Now it’s my turn!”and KABOOM!!! Lots of explosions, fire blowing, and jaw dropping actions scenes. I was glued to the screen while watching the comic-turned-movie Iron Man. I was truly overwhelmed by the visual effects in this double Academy Award nominated film. While I was walking out of the theatre, I honestly wished this movie would be made into a video game in PlayStation2. One of my friends told me that Sega made a game based on the film Iron Man. Iron Man is made into a game for PS2, PSP, Xbox 360 and Wii.

I was delighted to check out the game trailer of Iron Man and finally bought the game. I was taken aback by the game play. Though the game is based on the story from the movie, I was disappointed with poor and confusing action-cuts.

C’mon! Is this some kind of a lame and insipid practical joke or just another business trend? I didn’t want to be judgmental so I decided to play another game from my hot favorite film ‘Underworld: Rise of Lycans’. This is an action game where you play as Vampire or Werewolf battling through the streets with your fellow clan warriors. The game was addictive because all I had to do is aim and shoot.

Likewise, I checked out a glut of movie-turned-games like Transformers 1 &2, Spiderman, Kung-fu Panda, Terminator, Matrix: Path of Neo, etc. Some of them are very enthralling as I knew the story and I was just amused of how the story manifests in the game. Undeniably there is a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment because I wanted to watch the cut-scenes after beating each level and contrast them with the movies. But others are very disappointing because of the same reason that I knew the story. However, I certainly sensed a compensation of this disappointment with immersive game play. I wondered what parameters make a successful movie-turned-game.

As movies and video games are major entertaining channels, if a movie grosses well at the box-office, some gaming companies want to uphold and extend the excitement by making a game out of it and Hollywood is not an exception. This is subjected to the fact that the game must contain proper game play, good visuals and most of all, a gripping storyline based on the movie. Action-adventure movie-turned-games like Transformers and Matrix convince the player to ignore sleep and hunger to check out the 3D world of the film thanks to the media for the hype. The movie counterparts of these games made huge profits worldwide: Transformers grossing $706,471,251 worldwide and Matrix grossing $374,983,253 worldwide. Being the protagonist of the movie in the game and unraveling mysteries, shooting villains, and solving puzzles depicted in movies is a completely unique and enthralling experience. Such games often share the same background music, voiceovers, puzzles and traps, 3D ambience, and storyline as that of the movie. This helps in reliving the movie experience for an extended period of time.

On the other hand, even gamers want to have gaming experience of blockbusters like Terminator. Usually, such games will be launched within a year of release of the movie. Gaming companies prefer to release movie-turned-games in multiple platforms like PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PSP, and Wii to have high sales figures. Terminator 3: Rise of Machines, though didn’t have any new elements than its predecessors, did pretty well at the box office. Atari was probably in a hurry to finish the game and release it with the DVD release of the film in Christmas 2003. Though the game has intriguing cut-scenes and impressionable action sequences, it failed because of multitude of badly designed levels and uninspiring game play.

But what about movies based on games?

I played Hitman on PS2 a year ago. It was highly enjoyable for its elegant atmosphere, slowly rising tension and increasingly compelling environments that permitted ever complex strategy of seeking and killing the underworld mafia. I literally sensed a kind of urgency to finish the game as each level is very challenging and immersive. After I switched off the console, for a while my house looked like an underworld basement shown in the game. Then I watched Hitman movie and was quite disappointed. The film was not only a humdrum but also failed to instill that suspense in the game. My experience might have been different if I wouldn’t have played the game in the first place (but thank god, I did!). Again, the movie of Super Mario Brothers was a disaster. On the contrary, movies like Mortal Kombat, which is based on an award winning game, grossed very high at the box office. Similarly, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time grossed over $90 million in United States.

Surely a unique gaming experience can be made from a movie but developers must be conscious about game play, level design, and game flow. High level graphics in cut-scenes and effective simulation of game characters from the movie doesn’t necessarily ensure a game’s success. However, when we talk about success of the game, we need to be more specific. For instance, Mummy game did well on PC but floundered on PS2. Success in games is often platform-dependent.

Tomb Raider game sales

In Indian context, the scenario is unpredictable as Gaming is still in its nascent stage and the number of gamers in India is also increasing gradually. As things stand, the movie Gajini was made into a PC game by FX Labs. Though the movie was a box office success, the game couldn’t do well (though it didn’t disappoint the fans).

Apparently, Hollywood as well as gaming giants must not get carried away by the success of any game or movie. Gaming experience and movie experience are quite different. The factors that contributed to a game’s success might not work for the success of a commercial film. Recreating a gaming experience from a movie or vice versa needs to be done in a way that balances undeniable ‘wow’ factor and fame.

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                                                                             Written by Anirudh

Communication Architectures for Multiplayer Games

Since the making of first videogame called ‘Tennis for Two’ using an Oscilloscope in 1958 by William A. Higginbotham, who was working at Brookhaven National Laboratory, multiplayer gaming has witnessed drastic changes along with advancements in computer networks and the introduction of complex communication architectures. New architecture is an enhancement and uses many functions of its predecessor. The implementation of an improved architecture enables increased player base and lucid communication between them.

With the intrusion of internet, games have penetrated into World Wide Web. Their evolution in internet includes application of different architectures to ensure effective communication between game nodes. Earlier multiplayer games, however, did not have networking capabilities. The multiplayer functionality was achieved by having both players interact with the same computer. Till date, many console games that allow multiple players use ‘split screen’, where players could manipulate their game characters by partitioning a part of the video screen for each player. This is called Single Screen, Multiplayer Architecture.

In this type of architecture, every client process is considered as a peer. This means that there is no process that has more control over the game than others. There are no mediator nodes to control the state of the game or to route game messages. This architecture can be easily implemented on a Local Area Network (LAN) because of the broadcast support of many LANs (wired or wireless) and usually small number of players that participate in a single game. Clients can communicate with other clients in the network. In addition, a framework like ‘Hydra’ can be used as it allows the game host to be seamlessly passed from one peer to the other. This allows the game to continue even after the host quits the game or loses connectivity with a game’s process. It also eliminates the need of a central game server. However, an additional hierarchical structure is required to implement this in Internet for better scalability.

Client-Server architecture in online games:

The implementation of this type of architecture is dominant in commercial online games as well as in the classic Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) games like ‘The Shadow of Yserbius’. Client-Server architecture is also called Two-tier architecture, where all the connected systems are categorized either as a client or as a server. Usually, a single server manages multiple client requests. With this architecture, a server can limit the performance during the gameplay, either because it can’t keep up with the communication rate to all the clients or it can’t process the state of the game fast enough.

Note: MMOROG servers are maintained by the company selling the game; for other games, one of the players will act as the host setting his game in server mode. They use dedicated servers.

Network of servers architecture for online multiplayer games:

Here, a single server can function as a pool of several interconnected servers. The communication among these servers can be set up in a peer-to-peer fashion or client-server fashion where servers communicate with master servers, obtaining a hierarchical game architecture. By splitting the load from the clients across multiple servers, the network of servers can reduce the capacity requirements imposed on a single server. This can drastically increase the scalability of the game architecture.

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                                                                                                         Written by Anirudh

Morpheme: World’s first graphically-authorable animation engine

It’s been a long journey since Sonic & Knuckles (from SEGA) as the game engine technology has undergone diverse advances in game physics, animation, AI, networking, localization support, multi-threading, etc. These improvements have been integrated seamlessly in PC and console games. Core functionality in games like Doom, includes 2D and 3D rendering, sound, streaming, etc. Most of the gaming business was carried down by reusing the same game engines to make different games. However, later games needed more resources because of innovative game designs and simulation requirements.

NaturalMotion, a UK based company, introduced Morpheme, the first graphically-authorable animation engine for PlayStation3, Xbox 360, Wii and PC. In the partnership with airplay, morpheme is now available on iPhone. This engine features a runtime engine (morpheme:runtime) and a unique 3D authoring tool chain (morpheme:connect). morpheme:runtime is a next-gen animation engine with advanced animation features with simple run-time core. It ships with full source code.morpheme:connect is a powerful and flexible 3D interface with comprehensive and scriptable environment, 2D and 3D viewports for authoring and visualization, and more. Morpheme gives unprecedented creative control to animators and developers through diverse 2D and 3D tools and finest in-game animation. “Morpheme puts the animator in control of in-game animations. The result is in-game animation of unprecedented quality” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion.

Euphoria, NaturalMotion’s previous product, is based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS) – which synthesizes the animation data in real-time. Unlike Euphoria, Morpheme is not based on DMS. Instead it drastically increases the quality of canned in-game animation that gives splendid real-time output. However, Morpheme supports all the features of Euphoria.

It features advanced graphics tools to build complex blend trees and real-time visualization of animation source contribution through node highlighting. It also has full Lua support for automating tasks and to add AI logic for real-time input. With graphical mark up of animation data, Morpheme adds one-shot and duration events, for highlighting finer details in games, sound effects, etc. Multiple runtime characters can be created using morpheme:connect. This also enables character interaction. Morpheme gives intense network support for creating and functioning on transition networks through user-friendly drag-and-drop. This engine has flexibility to use custom high-level controls for real-time in-game manipulation through game pad controller or sliders. It also features an animation browser to work with source animation from animation list that is automatically updated to reflect changed source files.

Morpheme is being used by some of the world’s leading game developers and publishers like Activision, THQ, Bioware, Codemasters, Ubisoft, Disney, and many others.

Games that used Morpheme: Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Red Dead Redemption, Shattered Horizon, etc.

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                                                                                  Written by Anirudh

3D Gaming

Technology in gaming is changing rapidly in terms of hardware, processing power, graphics, simulation, etc. Some games with enhanced technology like high definition video output come with promising gameplay and more play time. Gamers can expect 3D games with more ‘realism’ on PlayStation 3 only because PS3 has 3D support. This would quench the thirst of most of the hardcore gamers as they’re looking for something more than just a hack n slash game with a bunch of weapon upgrades and cozy power ups.

Motion controlled games offer tremendous scope for innovation and hence many game developers are availing the opportunity to work on such games. Especially with the release of Sony’s Move and Microsoft’s Kinect, more consumers are buying Motion Controlled games. 3D technology, however, remains a delicate subject for most game developers and most of them are skeptical about the feasibility of this technology.

It is quite evident that not all developers embrace this technology as Sony and Nintendo, who has taken serious steps to work on 3D games. But this is not it. Sony is planning to get ready with a huge wave of 50 3D games on PlayStation 3. This is because PlayStation 3 has 3D support and 3D games soon will have a huge market. Sony declared that they are applying 3D to more than 20 internal games and they have more than 50 titles currently being converted into 3D and this number is growing fast.

Killzone 3, which is the first-party PS3 3D game, will be shipping on February 22, 2011. Killzone 1 & 2 did pretty well on PS2. Killzone 2 on PS2 shipped 677,000 copies. Though it didn’t touch the one million mark, this is a fantastic start. So all cheers for Killzone 3 3D! Sony’s most anticipated game Gran Turismo 5 has launched with 3D support and this is a feast for all racing gamers. The remastered high definition Sly collection is a addition to the 3D games; Sly Cooper and The Thevius Raccoonus, Sly 2 Band of Thieves, and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves can be played in 3D. These games also have PlayStation Move supported mini-games. They have online trophy support too! Other games boasting 3D support include Wipeout HD, Super Stardust HD, PAIN, The Fight: Lights Out and Ico Collection. Sony is increasing its 3D outreach to third-parties.

3D gaming has immense potential to influence the gaming market in the near future. But the real question remains that how many consumers can afford 3D-capable TV? In addition to uncomfortable glasses and 3D exclusive content, the consumer needs to buy other expensive 3D accessories. This worries most of the gamers. Despite these pocket-burning accessories, 3D gaming takes the player to a whole new level of gaming experience. Though the future of 3D is in its infancy, there is tremendous scope for 3D exclusive content.

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                                                                         Written by Anirudh

The NPC Challenge

Gaming is transforming the world: this is not a speculation but a fact. Most of the PC and console games challenge the player to understand the game environment and act logically. These challenges arise due to uncertainty in the game behavior; new puzzles, strange monsters with special attack/defense abilities, intriguing storyline, etc. This poses a definite challenge unless the player goes through a walkthrough and makes an attempt to understand the game behavior in order to plan a defense or strategy. Of course, such attempts take away the thrill and excitement of playing a game and the real essence of gameplay and involvement will be lost. The beauty of a game lies in its ability to engage player through its flavor of suspense. After all, what is the fun of playing an action-adventure game if you know head-to-tail in the game?

           The real question is not ‘how’ game designers have articulated the game objects but rather ‘where’ player engagement is coming from. One wonders how a game object can make its own possible decisions given certain defined parameters that are bound by the game rules. This ensures that such decisions won’t be unpredictable. If they are ‘really’ predictable, can the player easily guess the next possible outcome of a Non-player Character? Leaving the guess work to the player, there may be a possibility that NPC behavior can escape some rational predictions. Does it depend on the AI programming? Of course, yes. Nevertheless a real engaging game should be in such a way that it must give a fair challenge even to the designer.

           NPC behavior is certainly limited by many factors; game genre, game rules, identification of anomalies, etc. In the designer’s perspective, the NPC must ensure that it encounters player decisions in a tactical manner to give a sense of surprise. However, this is the job of a dynamic NPC and such surprises are not new to a veteran gamer because of his ability to tackle new situations in the game environment. In addition, such NPCs are aware (I am using this word rather hesitantly) of the environment and makes complete use of space (in the game) to dodge the players attacks.

           In most of the FPS games, it is quite evident that some NPCs (especially bosses), though have their own parameters like health, ammo, etc., are aware of player’s defined parameters, but what NPCs may fail to know is the special abilities of the player; probably special powers, improved ammunition, upgrades etc. A veteran gamer tactically makes use of diverse range of equipment possessed by his character to overcome the difficulty in the game. 

            Static NPCs have predictable behavior; however, the decisions can be many. NPCs in Pacman are designed in such a way that each ghost has a unique behavior. There are five ghosts in each level: first ghost prevents the player from entering the center of the screen, the second ghost roams in the edges of the maze, the third chases the player character, the fourth one prevents the player from taking special powers, and the fifth ghost will roam randomly throughout the maze. The combination of independent NPC behavior effectively challenges the player.

            It is important to understand what intelligence is in a rational sense before analyzing the AI of NPCs. Intelligence is the ability to learn, understand and make judgments that are based on reason. However AI in games is based on intelligent ‘responses’ by NPCs in a given situation. On the contrary, player’s intelligence is boundless as long as the player is able to effectively make use of the game environment and the parameters assigned to the player character in a manner that facilitates a comprehensive understanding of a dynamic NPC behavior and act accordingly.

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                                                                              Written by Anirudh

Open Source Gaming: The Forgotten Honor of Gaming

PC Gaming has spread its wings throughout the world in terms of technically superior hardware, mind-boggling sound systems and spectacular screen-resolution furnishing jaw-dropping gaming experience taking the player into a timeless world of fantasy and seemingly boisterous virtual reality. I often encounter people mistaking PC Gaming as Windows Gaming probably because of the fact that the omnipresent Windows games cater the needs of most of the casual gamers as well as hardcore gamers (let us exclude online gamers for the time being) and the surfeit of windows game manufacturers keep some licensing issues in darkness obviously for their business development (of course, this is undeniable). But if you are a serious gamer, are you aware of the possibilities of cost effectiveness, efficiency of game performance and other factors that help save your pocket while buying a game or upgrading your computer?

Honestly, what would you do to increase the performance of a game while using the same hardware that you’ve been using since, may be, five years? There is a substantial difference between running Assassins Creed 2 with AMD Athlon(tm) 64 processor 3200 + 2.00Ghz with 1GB of RAM and running the same game with AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400 + with 3GB RAM. Considering the way technology is progressing, one should probably have to exponentially increase the income to afford the Gaming Hardware. Also, what if your $40 Call of Duty 3 Disc accidentally breaks? Some skeptics, with a bright smile on their face, are too much convinced of the Digital Rights Management and argue that it is worth feeding Gaming giants and Hardware manufacturing companies ignoring their pocket on fire.

Open Source Gaming offers humongous possibilities of increased ‘economical’ Gaming experience. It is quite evident that Linux is not seen as a gaming platform due to noticeable reasons. I don’t even see the possibility of Linux being the mainstream of Gaming in the near future for the same reasons. But let us look at the unseen aspects that Linux can offer a gamer.

As Linux is impressively efficient than other operating systems in terms of performance; you can still play better games with your older hardware. This means that you need not upgrade your computer for a better game performance. Linux has the uncanny ability to make the best use of your existing hardware and give really good output on the screen without screen-flickering, system slow-down, etc. This saves us from the burden of shedding hundreds of dollars upgrading the RAM, Graphics Card, Sound Card, etc.

Multitasking ability of Linux allows reduction of ‘loading’ time in games. Linux can manage game files very efficiently and quickly with high precision. This facilitates easy navigation from one game screen to the other, or one-level to the other. Though you might not see much of a difference when you play games like Mahjong, but yes, you will find the difference while playing FPS like Cube 2.

Most of the Linux games are free because they are coded in open source standards. Hence, the accessibility is high. And there are wide-range of games in different genres from simple 2D maze games to 3D FPSs. If you are an MMO RPG Gamer, don’t forget to check out UFO: Alien Invasion. These games often exclude registration fees and are available in full-versions.

When was the last time you broke your head for a bunch of licensing issues for your favorite game? Linux games surpass licensing limitations and other restrictions like limited number of installations on a specific machine. You can install Linux games in as many computers as you want and never be locked out.

As Linux games are open source, you can find many forums and communities to share and discuss about the games that you play.

                                   

It isn’t surprising that much of Windows games are subjected to piracy on a large-scale. I don’t expect a mass exodus of gamers into Linux Gaming but the propensity towards Windows Gaming can be moderated by trying out some open source games and spreading a word about them. Though the economical ramifications of commercial games are not so intense that gamers are suddenly aware that there is a thing called ‘Linux Gaming’, there are visible changes in the market trends in terms of cost, quality and fame of games. By experiencing the flavor of Linux games, it is certain that open source games will be as popular as the commercial titles.

Some open source Linux games: Battle of Wesnoth, Nexiuz, America’s Army, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Tremulous, Trux Racer, World of Padman, Vendetta, etc.

Some open source Windows games: Plane Shift, Goblin Hack, Frozen Bubble, PiX Pang, GNU Chess, Cube, Hexen II, etc.

Some open source Mac games: Scorched 3D, Vega Strike, Wolfentein: Enemy Territory, Fight Gear, TripleA, etc.

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                                                                                             Written by Anirudh

Excessive game AI - A disappointment to gamers

Recent video games, irrespective of their platform, are becoming increasingly challenging for players. Veteran gamers may cope with such challenges; however the ‘unpredictability’ factor in games is still a conundrum. It is to be admitted that despite the game design and other related aspects of game development, Artificial Intelligence is crucial in engaging players for long hours of gameplay. In the complex game worlds which include high-textured game environments, intriguing storyline, and lucid interface, it is equally important to have requisite amount of AI in varying difficulty levels in order to ensure that player feels a balance in gameplay throughout the game. Though static game behavior in some game missions do succeed in engaging the player due to their innovative gameplay or creative game responses, sometimes the game fails if such aspects dominate the AI.

Tactical AI is important to challenge a hardcore gamer. At the same time, with the increase in complexity of games, AI shouldn’t cease the sense of achievement from the player. It must take out the best of the gamers’ ability to confront a game in highest difficulty level.

AI in early games

Early games had predefined logic which is scripted by the developers and hence the game behavior is acutely predictable. However, such games still succeeded because of the ‘unpredictability’ factor in gameplay rather than game behavior. In games like Mario, the player character needs to do a lot of adventures to complete a level. There are many levels in the game and each level has innovative gameplay and challenging villains. Other factors like collecting gold coins, time bonus, bonus levels, etc. contribute to long hours of game play. Games such as Minesweeper, DX-ball, etc, that had limited art work but promising game play, were hugely successful.

                                          Predictable AI in mario

                                              AI in Pacman

The NPCs in early FPS games had scripted behavior. For instance, AI in a typical war game would be any of these possibilities:

• If the player shoots, hide for 5 seconds and then shoot back
• If the player shoots, hide for 5 seconds and then shoot back or shoot from a different position.
• If the player shoots, escape the fire and shoot back.

And so on! However, if NPCs are scripted differently and each NPC has a unique behavior, it constitutes to a challenging gameplay. But that is practically impossible.

The seeds of game AI were sown when Chess was developed on computer. Though the rules of the game were limited, computer made innumerably accurate and clever decisions to counter a player’s move. Other games which also had good AI are Pacman, Tetris, etc.

The ‘unpredictability’ factor

Now, let’s look at what factors constitute for an ‘unpredictable’ AI behavior. Recent console and PC games have high AI. AI is vital in many action-adventure games especially when it comes to boss battles. When player character encounters a boss after killing a hundred minions, it is obvious that a whole new strategy must be adapted to kill the boss. However, as the player loses the boss battle for 2-3 times, the player understands the limitations or rather ‘weaknesses’ of the boss and hence fights the boss afresh. Here, the learning curve depends on the player’s exposure to wide-range of games. A hardcore gamer may need to lose just once to beat the boss.

Let us consider the case where the NPC learns from player’s pattern of attack and plans its counter accordingly. The game behavior then becomes increasingly unpredictable.

Let us take an example of AI in Tekken: Dark Resurrection and analyze the NPC behavior.

Easy:

• NPC allows the player to hit first
• Its hit to block ratio is approximately 5:1
• Crawling attacks are minimal
• Normal to combo attack ratio is 7:1

Medium:

• NPC does more attack combos
• Hit to block ratio is 5:3
• Grappling attacks are often used
• High kicks and triple punches are dominant

Hard:

• NPC detects players patterns and plans its combos
• Perfect timing is maintained for a knockout
• Enables defense mechanism if NPC’s health is low
• Special moves and combo attacks are dominant

Note: If the difficulty is set to the highest, the NPC has the ability to tactfully plan the attacks; if the player uses a flying kick that deflects NPC’s stance, it defends its position by a grappling attack. This is a classic example of excellent implementation of AI.

Which technique is used?

The unpredictability factor can be achieved through Fuzzy logic where the range of values programmed for NPC behavior is more. Fuzzy logic is an intelligent technique that could be used to boost the performance of games. It handles complex control problems at low computational costs, without sacrificing the subtle details. This causes uncertainty in NPC behavior as the possibilities of responding differently to a predictable situation in a game environment are abundant. The applications of fuzzy logic in behavior game design are the key to ‘intelligent’ behavior of an NPC.

Limitations of AI in games

Why is it necessary to limit AI in games? What happens when AI is excess? Before considering these questions, it is important to understand the following factors that relate to constructive AI.

• Situational analysis: By making scripted actions appear more dynamic and realistic, it adds a dimension of believability. Examples may be subtle effects like crawling through bushes in a war game, or more complex problem-solving behaviors like an NPC escaping from a trap set by the player using objects in the game environment.

• Behavioral programming: This is a critical factor that determines the underlying NPC behavior in the game environment. Behavioral programming is the random scripting with character types. In an RTS, if an infantry unit adapts a defensive stance, its likelihood of doing a particular action could be tweaked as 25% of grenade attacks, 5% of rushing, 70% of taking cover. If the infantry unit is set to aggressive stance, 40 % grenade attacks, 45% of rushing, 20% of taking cover. Character based programming is often adjusted throughout game balancing.

• Pathfinding: Getting an NPC from point A to B.  3D terrain and cover in a map are huge. The player must keep in account where the NPC is, is he firing, should the NPC fire when he moves, or go as fast as possible and at the end, did that look real and so on.

As Oliver G. Selfridge, author of ‘The Gardens of Learning’, said “If an expert system–brilliantly designed, engineered and implemented–cannot learn not to repeat its mistakes, it is not as intelligent as a worm or a sea anemone or a kitten”.If a learning system (expert system), designed through algorithms, can learn to make effective decisions by learning from each play, the system maintains a database of values and it juggles these results to come up with a clever counter attack. Hence AI becomes stronger and even the best gamer in the world can’t beat the game. But this is not the intention of any good game design. Excessive game AI often confuses the player and leads to boredom as the player keeps losing the game. An optimum use of AI in a game can be when the player feels as if he/she is playing with another human rather than a dumb computer program.

                                                                                                  Thanks for reading...

                                                                                                  Written by Anirudh