Hi i am new here. This place seems for all hard core programmers so i have come to ask for some guidance. I have been asked to do a project in AI. I have chosen games and i was asked to show the AI concepts in games as they did not care about the interface or the environments of the game. I am new to AI and game programming.I have a beginners knowledge in Java. So first of all is it possible for me to create this project??(As my skills seem very scarce) If its possible please tell me where to look for. I have browsed a lot of sites and the ideas seem advanced . Is there any resource that would help me from scratch. I would love to do this but looking at the forums i find it quite advanced. Please help me.

Do you need to do anything particular with your AI? There's quite a difference between writing a pathfinding algorithm and a chess bot.

It is very doable with the correct choice of game. Look into games such as Tic Tac Toe opponent, Sudoku player or even a Solitaire solver, games with (relatively) simple interfaces and simple rules. You can make a text based interface. This way you can concentrate on the AI aspect rather than spending time making a complicated game.

It depends on what they expect from you - have you any idea how complex they expect you to make your program?

"Race to 20" is probably one of the simplest games that can appear to exhibit intelligent automated play.


Hmmm ... can't find any decent Google links on it though.



edit: This link *might* demonstrate the game. (I haven't installed the plugin needed to play it on this computer, so it's a bit of a guess.)
http://countdown.luc.edu/NCTM_cat/NumberOperation/Games_Puzzles/060518/RaceTwenGame/index.html






In any case, the game is simple to describe. Players alternate turns, and at the beginning of the game they start at one, with the first player getting a choice to say "one" or "one, two". From there, they continue advancing the count, where they can choose to advance by one number or two numbers, like "three"or "three, four". The winner is the one that gets to say "twenty."

Here's a link that explains the solution to the game.
click here

[Edited by - HostileExpanse on September 13, 2009 12:24:35 PM]

Hi first of all thanks a lot for all your replies... It was informative for starters. Well what they expect in my AI project is that it should exhibit strong AI concepts and algorithms used. I have to show them where i have used AI and the algorithms(as they specifically asked) because they just wont accept a game as an academic project(though it involves more programming concepts!!!!). SO my problem is how do i code AI and from where do i learn to do so. I saw a lot of AI eboks and some of them were quite advanced. I need to use AI in the game and show that AI part. SO is there a way for me to do that??? If so from where should i start learning as i am willing to do so????

You could try your hand at neural nets, but you probably want to just start with rule-based AI.

This link looks somewhat helpful.
http://gpwiki.org/index.php/Rule-Based-AI



It's possible that the "Race to Twenty" game that I mentioned may be a little too simple to really showcase an AI strategy, since it's probably only 1 or 2 rules. Alternatively, you could construct a brute force algorithm that simulates all of the potential future moves in the game of choice and then determines the optimal move from that data. This could also be considered AI.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute-force_search