I hope this announcement will be of interest to the people on this discussion board. The NERO game is available for free and uses neural networks and an evolutionary algorithm to enable the AI. ___ The Digital Media Collaboratory and the Dept. of Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin are pleased to announce the release of the NeuroEvolving Robotic Operatives (NERO) video game on Thursday, June 23rd at nerogame.org. NERO integrates cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning research into a commercial-grade video game to produce an entirely novel gaming experience. It is the result of almost two years of work by a mostly volunteer team of over 30 student programmers, artists, and researchers at the University. In NERO, the player trains a team of novice soldiers in the skills needed for battle. Once the soldiers have acquired the skills, players can take their teams to battle mode where their tactics are tested against teams trained by other players. The real-time NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies (rtNEAT) technology inside NERO allows the robotic soldiers to really learn from the player in real-time as the game is being played, making this new game genre possible. NERO is available for download at: nerogame.org. The website also includes forums for users to discuss their training techniques and ask for help, as well as links to media and research papers on NEAT and rtNEAT. Please direct game-related questions to the forums. Research or IP-related issues can be sent to research@nerogame.org. ken

I'm going to give this a try, looks like it could be interesting.

I think I accidently trained my men overnight to run into the enemies line of fire.... Oops

Anyway, it is pretty interesting so far. Is anyone else trying it out?

Wow, this is tremendously cool! As a beginning game AI hobbyist, what a cool intro to the subject. I d/l'ed the game last night and fooled around a bit with it. Will be putting in more time this week, and I look forward to learning more about this stuff.

-GregP

(can't remember my login password, will have to find it later)

Saw it on Slashdot a day or two ago. Been playing with it a bit here and there and so far it's pretty neeto! I really like the fact that they took the time to provide the ability to observe the activities in a visual game like environment. Since it was being slashdotted at the time I didn't have a chance to check out much of the info on their website though.

Hope they're planning on releasing the source code and/or (more importantly) all the research papers and history of the project.

Hmm would be nice if they let you implement your own ai,

I think I've seen that game engine before...? I've definitely seen that crossbow before.

Link here for interested people.

Seems like it'll be fun, but I have not tried it yet.

Neural networks and Evolutionary Algorithms fascinate me in general.

johnnyBravo,

It's the Torque game engine, that's why you recognize it. The crossbow is the standard one that comes shipped with the FPS material.

-Greg

The research is documented in Ken Stanley's Phd thesis.