Neil Kirby—Bell Laboratories
Do game designers really know how people play their games? If the only way to know something is to measure it, then AI can be an effective gameplay analysis tool. This article uses case studies of two popular casual games, Minesweeper and Sudoku, to show how small amounts of AI can illuminate what core gameplay actually is. There is no claim that the AI measures what is fun, but it can measure what players actually do. The numbers may tell a different story than expected. Although AI can most easily be applied to casual games, the results indicate value to more complex games as well. Writing such AI leads to new gameplay concepts. A potential two-player Minesweeper ...
No credit card required