AI in Games, Part 1 - Basics

No, not the feasibility of AI as a construct. Rob Ager did a magnificent series describing that in detail; I would highly recommend it if you haven't checked it out.

I'm talking about the AI that controls enemies and allies in games; characters represented on screen that the player can interact with.

There are a few things you should know going into this:

1. There's only one computer controlling the AI. The characters, as far as programming goes, are not really separate entities, but appear so to the player for immersion into the game environment.

2. A lot of invisible calculation and planning goes into AI that the player doesn't see. In fact, most of it is invisible to the player.

3. What the player does see, the player is supposed to see by design.

As for number 3, I recall my first time playing Halo and running into the Flood and the Covenant fighting. I was tripping out! Now I realize it was by design, but I was naive back then and assumed it was just because the AI was that sophisticated or something.

Now that these introductory things are set, we can go through my series on AI in Games!

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