image Chapter 5

Decision Making

Ask a gamer about game AI, and they think about decision making: the ability of a character to decide what to do. Carrying out that decision (movement, animation, and the like) is taken for granted.

In reality, decision making is typically a small part of the effort needed to build great game AI. Most games use very simple decision making systems: state machines and decision trees. Rule-based systems are rarer, but important.

In recent years a lot of interest has been shown in more sophisticated decision making tools, such as fuzzy logic and neural networks. However, developers haven’t been in a rush to embrace these ...

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