Model-based design of computer-controlled game character behavior

Abstract

Recently, the complexity of modern, real-time computer games has increased drastically. The need for sophisticated game AI, in particular for Non-Player Characters, grows with the demand for realistic games. Writing consistent, re-useable and efficient AI code has become hard. We demonstrate how modeling game AI at an appropriate abstraction level using an appropriate modeling language has many advantages. A variant of Rhapsody Statecharts is proposed as an appropriate formalism. The Tank Wars game by Electronic Arts (EA) is used to demonstrate our concrete approach. We show how the use of the Statecharts formalism leads quite naturally to layered modeling of game AI and allows modelers to abstract away from choices between, for example, time-slicing and discrete-event time management. Finally, our custom tools are used to synthesize efficient C++ code to insert into the Tank Wars main game loop. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.