Why F.E.A.R.’s AI is still the best in first-person shooters

Re:Why F.E.A.R.’s AI is still the best in first-person shooters by edejong on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @08:44AM (#14031932)

Sounds very familiar. I once made a planning AI for the xlockmore / xscreensaver Pacman. It was never included since it would require too much CPU on low-end machines. Nevertheless, it took me quite some time to debug a strange behavior while writing it. The planning system would plan around 50 steps ahead, minimizing the risk of being eaten by a ghost while maximizing the number of dots eaten. Strangely enough, it would continually decide to go towards the ghosts, instead of evading them. Every time I saw this happening, I decided to stop the game and debug my code. Looking through it for the umphth time, I became weary-eyed and let the simulation run for a bit longer. Awe-struck, I saw what Pacman was planning all along: have the ghosts closely follow behind him. This would minimize the probability of being fenced in by the four ghosts.

And this reminds me, I wrote that code 12 years ago, and I still want to incorporate it (with a switch) into the xscreensaver code, but never came to it...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why F.E.A.R.’s AI is still the best in first-person shooters by talmand on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @05:10PM (#14037241)

That's why the original ghosts had some somewhat random behavior centered around a corner of the maze for each ghost. If I remember right, at random times a ghost will head to its own corner in its own specific way. There's an article or two out there about it, it's an interesting read.

Plus, the ghosts are faster than you when you are eating dots.

[ Parent | on HN ]