Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a crucial element of game design that can enhance the realism, challenge, and variety of gameplay. However, creating immersive AI is not easy, as it requires balancing multiple factors, such as logic, personality, behavior, and interaction. In this article, you will learn some ways to make AI more immersive in your game design projects.
Before you start coding your AI, you need to have a clear idea of what you want it to achieve in your game. What is the role and purpose of your AI? How does it fit into the game world and the narrative? How does it affect the player and the gameplay? These questions will help you define your AI goals, which will guide your design decisions and help you measure your AI's performance.
Agree, would like to add on top of it. Environment around the AI matters a lot too. Have a clear understanding of what environment it is operating in and then based on the ai behaviour derived using above mentioned methods, make it evolve understanding the environment would bring in more immersive experience and this can be more natural.
A finite state machine, or FSM, is a common technique for creating AI logic. It consists of a set of states, such as idle, patrol, chase, attack, and flee, and a set of transitions, or rules, that determine when and how the AI switches from one state to another. For example, if the AI is in the patrol state and sees the player, it will transition to the chase state. FSMs are easy to implement and debug, and can create realistic and responsive AI behavior.
Using FSM is great on improving how the AI behaves but removing some boundaries can also give a unique twist. Considering same example we give the patrolling path and chase path but we can also give flexibility for ai to maybe jump to increase field of view randomly or evading stealth mode traps which seems very unnatural even in games like assassins creed etc would definitely give a new experience. Complex but more realistic if a game wants to opt that approach.
Another way to make AI more immersive is to give it some personality and emotion. This can make the AI more believable, relatable, and unpredictable, as well as create more dynamic and interesting interactions with the player. For example, you can use voice lines, facial expressions, animations, and sound effects to convey the AI's mood, attitude, and motivation. You can also use variables, such as fear, anger, and confidence, to influence the AI's behavior and decision-making.
Collision detection and physics are essential for creating immersive AI, as they allow the AI to interact with the game environment and the player in realistic and consistent ways. Collision detection is the process of detecting when two or more objects collide or overlap in the game space, such as the AI and a wall, or the AI and the player. Physics is the process of applying the laws of motion, gravity, and force to the objects in the game space, such as the AI falling, bouncing, or sliding. By using collision detection and physics, you can make your AI more aware of its surroundings and more responsive to its actions.
Communication and cooperation are important for creating immersive AI, especially if you have multiple AI agents in your game. Communication is the process of exchanging information between the AI agents, such as their location, status, and intentions. Cooperation is the process of coordinating actions between the AI agents, such as forming teams, sharing resources, and executing strategies. By enabling communication and cooperation, you can make your AI more intelligent, adaptable, and challenging.
This especially makes it a completely unique experience when ai interacts with the character. We can find these weird interactions even on games like GTA. Imagine NPC’s getting aligned or getting against the player. Every interaction with ai impacts the gameplay and will be unique for every user. They might join hands on missions or alert enemy upfront. Possibilities are endless. Player understanding the behaviour of the ai and using it to play NPCs can be a GAME CHANGING experience. To be honest, I can’t wait to design a gameplay like this!
The final way to make AI more immersive is to test and iterate your AI. Testing is the process of evaluating your AI's performance, functionality, and quality in different scenarios and conditions. Iteration is the process of improving your AI based on the feedback and data from testing. By testing and iterating your AI, you can identify and fix any bugs, errors, or inconsistencies, as well as optimize and refine your AI's logic, personality, behavior, and interaction.
If you can't explicitly define intelligence, you don't know what it is. So how are you to be expected to develop a thing, that you have zero idea what it actually is. Don't lie to yourself and the public, go pick up a neurology book and read.