December 8, 2010
Speaking of game AI…two Pac-Man-related links are making the blog rounds these days – one of them is new.
The new one is Chad Birch’s “Understanding Pac-Man Ghost Behavior”. It is clear and well illustrated.
As Chad points out, he was inspired by and used Jamey Pittman’s “Pac-Man Dossier”. This is a nice resource.
It also seems that I haven’t previously blogged Don Hodges’ fix to a bug in the behavior of two of the ghosts. (The bug-fixing of classic videogames is a topic we will return to in the future.)
Of course, the ghosts need a Pac-Man to chase. I have previously linked to a Ms. Pac-Man computer player competition. Of specific interest is this paper on evolving rules to play Ms. Pac-Man (seems that I have not directly linked it before).
(Post title is of course a play on the “magnets…” meme.)
2 Comments | 
AI, games, rules, video games | Tagged: AI, games, magnets...how do they work?, Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man, rules, video games | 
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Posted by Karl W. Reinsch
December 7, 2010
The folks at the PokerStars online poker service actively police their games to make sure that bots are not being used to gain advantage.
Here’s a recent post from their Game Security staff demonstrating that they paid a visit to one player in order to witness the playing and playstyle in person.
It ends with the following wonderful quote:
We are pleased to report, however, that ‘rs03rs03′ is human.
(I also thought JWZ’s take on it was amusing. But you would need to have read Neuromancer to get it.)
1 Comment | AI, games, video games | Tagged: AI, games, poker, PokerStars, Turing Police, video games, William Gibson | Permalink
Posted by Karl W. Reinsch
September 21, 2010
Researcher Daphne Bavelier is back with more videogame research. Once again, the study used The Sims 2, Call Of Duty 2, and Unreal Tournament.
The results of this study showed that those who played the action games made quicker decisions:
“In the problem-solving exercise, the action-game players made decisions 25 percent faster than the strategy group, while answering the same number of questions correctly.”
No Comments » | brain science, Uncategorized, video games | Tagged: brain, brain science, Call of Duty 2, The Sims 2, This Is Your Brain On Videogames, Unreal Tournament 2004, videogames | Permalink
Posted by Karl W. Reinsch
August 2, 2010
No Comments » | AI, games, rules, video games | Tagged: AI, artificial intelligence, expert systems, games, John E. Laird, Michael van Lent, rule engines, rules, videogames | Permalink
Posted by Karl W. Reinsch
March 17, 2010
Here’s the video for an interesting speech by Jesse Schell entitled “Design Outside The Box.”
Topics of the speech include:
- the psychology of games – making them sticky
- the consumer desire for realism and authenticity as a recent trend
- technological convergence/divergence of devices, the iPhone, the iPad, and the “pocket exception”
- the possibility of game achievements improving behavior
- the fact that there are more FarmVille players on FaceBook than there are Twitter accounts
Achievements are already leaking over to non-games, some items that could have been mentioned:
Read the rest of this entry »
No Comments » | games, video games | Tagged: Amazon.com, FaceBook, FarmVille, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Netflix, Ribbon Hero, Twitter, video games, XBox 360 | Permalink
Posted by Karl W. Reinsch
March 16, 2010
A neat article by J.P. LeBreton looking back at the design and play style of the original Doom. As J.P. says:
Doom feels more like 1st person Robotron than a modern FPS
No Comments » | games, video games | Tagged: Dallas Gaming Mafia, Doom, first person shooter, FPS, id Software, Robotron: 2084 | Permalink
Posted by Karl W. Reinsch
February 3, 2010
The article is a bit old now (June 2009), but Wired had an interesting interview with Vivek Kundra about Data.gov. This is the usual Web 2.0 pitch about making data transparent and available and hoping that crowdsourcing will magically create useful things.
I will however admit to having been intrigued by the concept of one of the apps mentioned in the article:
In DC, someone combined several of the data sets released by local government—maps, liquor license info, crime statistics—into an app called Stumble Safely, which shows users the safest way to walk home when drunk.
Now someone just needs to mash it up with some augmented reality software or turn-by-turn GPS directions (“Turn left at the next corner. Stagger 2 blocks east. Try not to walk into that telephone pole.”).
Also of interest is DataMasher, which I spotted on LifeHacker. It appears to be a site for mashing up various government data sources. You can also save your own mashup and make it available to others. Looks interesting. So far, the Highest Rated and Most Discussed mashups seem to focus on health, mortality, guns, alcohol, obesity, and reproduction.
Finally, if you’ve read Freakonomics, check out this article on “bad boy” baby names as a predictor of behavior.
No Comments » | datamining, games, video games | Tagged: baby names, crowdsourcing, data, datamining, Freakonomics, government, mashup, Web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Karl W. Reinsch
February 3, 2010
The rise of the online always-on videogame opens a new world of stat tracking. The recent changes is this area are well beyond simple high score boards or achievements/trophies. For example, consider the article “You Are Being Watched” from a recent issue of the Official Xbox Magazine. The article details the datamining that Bungie is doing for Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST, that Criterion is doing for Burnout Paradise, and Valve is doing for Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead.
All of these companies are gathering data that shows them how their games are really being played. One usage for this data is to potentially make improvements and bug fixes. In the case of Bungie, players can actually log onto bungie.net and see their own stats and own personal heat maps for the matches they have played. Valve shares some of the overall data, and has recently started adding personalized data (for Steam players only).
For the personalized data, it would be interesting to see some numbers for how many players actually review their stats and whether it has an impact on their playing.
See also:
While I’m clearing out the videogame datamining links…
No Comments » | datamining, games, video games | Tagged: Bungie, Burnout, Burnout Paradise, Counter-Strike, Criterion Games, datamining, games, Halo, Halo 3, Halo 3: OSDT, Left 4 Dead, Microsoft, neural network, Neuroph, Nintendo, Steam, Team Fortress 2, Valve Corporation, videogames, Wii, Xbox, Xbox Live | Permalink
Posted by Karl W. Reinsch
January 31, 2010
Scientific American’s online edition has an article touching on the study I previously blogged in which videogames were observed to improve vision. The article is a nice contrast to much of the game journalism coverage of the research, and gives me an opportunity to briefly revisit this topic.
Obviously, we know that games can teach information or hone motor skills – but there isn’t a lot of research around games and brain plasticity.
This article has a nice point calling out the lack of good research in this area (I’m looking at you, Brain Age.):
To date, much of the claims around this rapidly growing area of technology-supported medical interventions are insufficiently supported by scientific data.
(I have since found a study examining the effect of videogames upon memory and thinking skills in the elderly – using Boom Blox.)
Out of a number of online mentions of this research that I have seen, this article comes closest to referencing Steven Johnson‘s book “Everything Bad Is Good For You”. Perhaps I have just missed the articles that make the logical connection.
It also amuses me to see a study showing that playing Call Of Duty 2 or Unreal Tournament 2004 is in any measurable sense “better” than playing The Sims 2.
In other news, it seems that Dr. Richard Haier is still researching with Tetris. Dr. Haier did some of the original brain research with Tetris back in 1992 (two publications: one in Intelligence, another in Brain Research). In 2009, Dr. Haier did some new research involving Tetris while acting as a consultant to Blue Planet Software. MSNBC has a brief interview with Dr. Haier. Wired has another writeup on the research. (I would be remiss if I didn’t include a link to a certain someone declaring themselves as a Gameboy Tetris purist: “Tetris on the Gameboy…only.”)
I’ll close with another link I had lying around: scientists studying mice brains by using Quake 2.
Update, March 2010: Another bit of research on Tetris and PTSD.
No Comments » | brain science, games, video games | Tagged: Blue Planet Software, Boom Blox, brain, Brain Age, brain science, Call of Duty 2, Dallas Gaming Mafia, Dr. Richard Haier, Everything Bad Is Good For You, Gameboy, games, id Software, Nintendo, Oregon Trail, PTSD, Quake 2, Solitaire, Steve Wozniak, Steven Berlin Johnson, Steven Johnson, Tetris, The Sims 2, This Is Your Brain On Tetris, This Is Your Brain On Videogames, Unreal Tournament 2004, video games, Woz | Permalink
Posted by Karl W. Reinsch
