Reply to post: Back to basics...

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Microsoft's 'Ms Pac-Man beating AI' is more Automatic Idiot

juice

Back to basics...

The thing is, they've managed to get a "perfect" score on the Atari 2600 version, not the arcade original. And for all that the port was well received at the time, it's a crude and heavily cut-down copy.

Sadly, there doesn't seem to have been much analysis of the way it was coded, though there is at least one hack out there which improves the graphics (http://atariage.com/hack_page.html?SystemID=&SoftwareHackID=5). But I'd be willing to bet that the algorithms controlling the ghosts are entirely deterministic, unlike the original where a random factor was included in the algorithms controlling the ghosts [*]

Beyond that, it's worth noting that the AI was only responding tactically, not strategically. Which is fine for a game like Ms Pac-man: if you can put your death off long enough, you'll eventually reach the maximum score. It wouldn't work as well in a game where there a

re other criteria - e.g. in Defender, you have to survive, kill all the aliens and protect the humans.

So yeah. They managed to write an AI which could produce a tactical solution for a deterministic situation with only 4 negative factors (aka: the ghosts). It's pretty much the most basic proof of concept you could produce.

Wake me up when they manage to produce something capable of tackling Defender or something more chaotic such as Robotron or Bubble Bobble...

[*] Unlike the original Pac-man, which was entirely deterministic; there were even books written on how to game the algorithms!

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