How Is the Book Organized?
AI Game Development is divided into parts, chapters, sections, sentences, and words; nothing revolutionary there! In the practical spirit of game AI, however, each part of this book covers an aspect of the creation of NPCs, such as movement or combat. Creature capabilities are built up step by step, culminating in an AI that can learn to play a deathmatch game in a first-person shooter. Along the way, we will explore the concepts behind the development, lessons that will prove invaluable for becoming independent game AI engineers.
The chapters in each part correspond to different steps of the AI production:
Analyzing the platform
Understanding the problem
Designing the specification
Implementing a simple prototype
Researching AI theory
Developing a modular component
Applying the technique to the problem
Experimenting with the results
Testing the solution
Optimizing the model
This is the basic blueprint for each part, although we'll use artistic variations in the chapters as we progress through this book.
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