Towards a nondisruptive, practical, and objective automated playtesting process

Abstract

Playtesting is the primary process that allows a game designer to access game quality. Current playtesting methods are often intrusive to play, involves much manual labor, and might not even portray the player's true feedback. This paper aims to alleviate these shortcomings by presenting the position that state of the art artificial intelligence techniques can construct automated playtesting systems that supplement or even substitute this process to a certain extent. Several potential research directions are proposed in this theme. A work-inprogress report is also included to demonstrate the conceptual feasibility of the potentials of this research area. © 2011, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.