

Angelina 101 - shawndumas
http://www.gamesbyangelina.org/?p=104

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vibrunazo
That's a very similar idea to our startup. Except we're not using brute force
evolution algorithms. Which I think is a bad idea, for the same reason
researchers have found neural networks to be generally a bad approach to
machine learning. The problem is the same, while it might be mathematically
viable to code a system that will brute force it's way to learn if a great
game is. That takes too long to most commercial applications. Specially when
it's so easy to "cheat" and pre-input some values you already learned
yourself.

In short, why would you write a code that takes 10 years to learn something
that you could teach it yourself in a few minutes?

Brute force evolution algorithms are a fun and interesting thing to do
research on. But that's it. The only practical application for it, is to
research the algorithms itself to better understand how they work! But I'm
sure the author of Angelina knows this, as his main goal does seem to be
better understand how the algorithms work. That's fine, just don't expect many
awesome commercially viable games from it. If that was the goal, I'd recommend
"cheating" your own knowledge and the knowledge of other players to train your
machine learning algorithms, similar to a recommendation algorithm. That's
what we're hoping to achieve ourselves.

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michaelbuckbee
Far from my area of expertise, but I always considered the reason to try the
brute force approach was to uncover the non-obvious things that "everyone
knows won't work".

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vibrunazo
You're right. That's why these algorithms are often said to be _effective_ ,
but not _efficient_. Meaning they do what they're supposed to, but the costs
(time and money) might make it not viable for commercial use. Specially when
there are known solutions that performs better.

Brute force evolution algorithms are fun to observe and do research on. But at
the end of the day, it's the more efficient manually trained algorithms that
end up making their way to commercial use.

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unreal37
Cool idea. Can a computer design video games for humans through a combination
of trial and error, and combining existing games?

I think it can. Will be interesting to see what games it produces.

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mtrc
Evolution is a pretty cool tool. That said, it has its limitations! Inventing
brand new mechanics seems to be a particularly tricky problem, for instance.
Look at something as left-field as Antichamber (from this year's IGF). That
takes some creativity to come up with, I think.

Still, that's why it's research! Wouldn't be fun without feeling a bit
impossible.

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bitcracker
> Evolution is a pretty cool tool.

This is not evolution, it's exactly the opposite. Take the cake sample. You
have a goal (the cake) and let the AI system find a way to reach that goal.
Evolution has no goals at all.

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mtrc
Are you objecting to the use of the word 'tool', or do you not consider
ANGELINA to be an evolutionary process?

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DanBC
"Evolution" is a touchy word, because there are so many idiots who will deny
it exists or who will distort it horribly.

It's a shame that a useful word is less useful now - purists want to make sure
that biological evolution is never misrepresented. That's fair enough. It's a
simple concept and lots of people (even the ones who accept evolution)
sometimes make mistakes.

Personally, I think the term "computational evolution" is clear enough.

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quasistar
Not sure current technology is capable of yielding real creativity. Perhaps as
we enter the era of quantum computing. But fun level design and infinite
gameplay generated using AI/ML techniques are a welcome addition to casual
games.

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mtrc
Well, 'real creativity' is a tough thing to pin down or talk about at the best
of times. I think it can be achieved with conventional computing, but I think
many people would reject it as creative even when faced with it.

As you say, though, creative or not I'm just happy to be producing software
that can make fun(-ish) games!

