Usage
Game AI/heuristic algorithms are used in a wide variety of quite disparate fields inside a game. The most obvious is in the control of any NPCs in the game, although scripting is currently the most common means of control. Pathfinding is another common use for AI, widely seen in real-time strategy games. Pathfinding is the method for determining how to get an NPC from one point on a map to another, taking into consideration the terrain, obstacles and possibly "fog of war". Beyond pathfinding, navigation is a sub-field of Game AI focusing on giving NPCs the capability to navigate in their environment, finding a path to a target while avoiding collisions with other entities (other NPC, players...) or collaborating with them (group navigation). Game AI is also involved with dynamic game difficulty balancing, which consists in adjusting the difficulty in a video game in real-time based on the player's ability.
The concept of emergent AI has recently been explored in games such as Creatures, Black & White and Nintendogs and toys such as Tamagotchi. The "pets" in these games are able to "learn" from actions taken by the player and their behavior is modified accordingly. While these choices are taken from a limited pool, it does often give the desired illusion of an intelligence on the other side of the screen.
Read more about this topic: Game Artificial Intelligence
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