Rule schemata for game artificial intelligence

Abstract

Rule-based systems are a promising means to specify interface standards for artificial intelligence tools and modules for games, as advocated by the International Game Developers Association. Rules, however, can be too flexible, allowing undisciplined and "dirty" programming styles and solutions. We advocate in this paper that although rules are a good starting point towards standardising artificial intelligence techniques in games, they must be complemented with automatically verifiable rule schemata to ensure the appropriate implementation of such techniques and theories. We illustrate our point with a specific rule-based implementation of a theory of norms for synthetic characters which enables the specification of sophisticated behaviours. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.