
Angelina is a computer AI that builds games all by itself - shawndumas
http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/8/2853360/angelina-computer-ai-builds-games-all-by-itself
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sehugg
This is cool, I've been thinking of how this could be applied to turn based
games, for example RPG combat. I have read about commercial "balancing" tools
but never about a wholly computer generated system.

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mtrc
There was a great AIGameDev.org article recently about evolution being used to
balance a tower defence game.

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gbaygon
This: [http://aigamedev.com/open/interview/evolution-in-
cityconques...](http://aigamedev.com/open/interview/evolution-in-
cityconquest/)

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mtrc
That's the one. Awesome article, awesome ideas.

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mikeknoop
Usually the most intriguing part of any genetic-algorithm type optimization is
the fitness function. In your case, what makes a good or fun game?

From the first paper it looks like you tried to achieve steady forward
progress (in terms of power ups and "reachability"). Did you consider any
alternative fitness functions?

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mtrc
Fitness is easily the trickiest part of both projects so far. We're using co-
operative co-evolution so elements of the game design are evaluated separately
as well as together. For the Metroidvania, the key bit of the FF is "the play
should have to collect all the powerups, in a mostly total order, to reach the
exit". What this does is create segmented levels that have 'stages' which you
access through powerup collection.

For the arcade games it was a lot more general. We did a lot of very rough
heuristics like "maps shouldn't be too cluttered", "you should have to explore
most of the screen to win" and things like that. I want to go back to arcade
games becuase it's a much harder problem to design games without genre
staples.

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methoddk
Woah, that's amazing.

I want to play with this now.

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mtrc
Hey, I'm the guy behind ANGELINA - glad you like the project! The New
Scientist game is available to play on that link, near the bottom of the
article. You can also check out older games (less impressive than the one we
made for NS!) over on the project site: www.gamesbyangelina.org/games

Thanks for taking an interest, HN!

