Programming Game AI by Example

Programming Game AI By Example by Mat Buckland is one of those books that comes highly recommended and was one I had been meaning to read for a long time. In fact, I originally purchased the paperback in 2006 and never got around to reading it. The interesting part is that the book is still very much relevant today and is not dated in the least. Well now maybe some of the engines and middleware have this stuff built in, but the fundamentals I think I still important to understand.The book starts with a quick primer on math and physics. The basics are explained, like Cartesian coordinates, trigonometry, vectors, coordinate spaces, and some physics. Like most people reading a book of this level, the beginning was a light refresher. However, I’m a big stickler for reading books from cover to cover with no skipping around, so I did not mind a short recap. Next Buckland gets into state-driven design and demonstrates a simple command-line app using the concepts. I found this approach successful, and it was able to show the concepts without complex 2D or 3D math getting in the way.He followed up with autonomous moving agents, mostly based on steering behaviors. I was already somewhat familiar with steering behaviors, but I found the author’s description and code to be clear and concise and explained the concept better than I’ve seen before. He then applies the previous topics to a simple soccer game. This was a great next step, and really compiled the knowledge being taught into something concrete. In the next chapter, the author went into graphs; what they are, how to use them, and some popular algorithms link Dijkstra and A*. I always wanted to know what A* was, and this book explains it fairly well.Buckland then devotes a section to cover scripting languages and why they are useful. In this case, he chose Lua (not a bad choice) and explains some basics about the language, how to interface it with C++, and creates a simple finite state machine. This chapter is helpful even if you’re not coding AI and just need a scripting language for your game or engine (provided you like Lua). In fact, a lot of the concepts in this book are generic enough that they can be applied to multiple fields of interest for game developers.Next, the author creates a simple overhead game framework used in the subsequent examples. Using this framework he then shows practical path planning, goal driven agent behavior, and finishes up with fuzzy logic. Fuzzy logic is another one of those buzzwords that always intrigued me but I never really understood. Buckland concludes with a quite excellent explanation of the concept.Overall I found this book to be stellar on all accounts. I feel that any game developer could gain insight from this text, even if they aren’t primarily working with AI programming. The scripting coverage could be used in many games, and the algorithms covered are generic enough to apply to different disciplines. While this is the first book I’ve read on AI, I really can’t imagine a better introduction. Highly recommended.

One Line Synopsis - This book is a must for anyone interested in the topic of AI in games, and it is full of examples that really drive home the lessons being taught.With all the college courses and graduate studies devoted to the field of artificial intelligence, this book could have easily drowned itself it excessive theory. Thankfully, this did not happen. The author is truly able to give concrete examples and demonstrate the applicable methodologies. Not only do the examples given in the text convey the lessons in AI so clearly, they could easily be employed in your own projects.I have given myself plenty of time not only to read the book, but generate my own AI code inspired from the book. It really is the perfect blend of theory, practice, and examples. If you are looking for an entry level AI book that will also deliver you into the intermediate stages of AI programming, this is the book you have been looking for.I would highly recommend anyone who purchases the book to check out the source code that can be found on the companion website. It not only offers the source code from the book, but also the standalone executables that run the programs discussed. As AI behavior is such a dynamic phenomenon, it really lends itself to view the examples in motion alongside the text. That's why these programs are so helpful. Additionally, one can tell a lot of care was put into constructing these programs to really demonstrate the main point of each topic.As an aside, chapter 2 of this book is an exceptional chapter for those interested in game engine design. It primarily deals with state-driven design and finite state machines, but also discusses game entities and their management along with message handling. While the topics in this chapter deal with AI behavior, their applications go far beyond AI and could easily be applied to many other features of games and software.

If you are intererested in coding intelligente agent that can move around, flock, swarm, hunt and flee or follow a basic sort of strategic behaviour this text is an excellent choice. It offers practical examples examples of all of the above in the context of a simple soccer game and a search & destroy game called raven. Don 't expect 3D and fancy graphics. All games and concepts are 2D and the graphics is rudimentary at best, but that serves the puropose of keeping teh complexity of the book to manageable levels and the focus on AI programming. There is ton of example code to study and play with, and the little theory in the book basically is just an explanation of the code that the author has written. I would have liked to see more space dedicated to theory, and clearer and more genral explanations instead of "here is the code that.." but oh well better too much practice than too much theory.. and after all the book title makes it clear that this is a hands-on kind of text.Definitely a must have book for the aspiring AI programmer or hobbist. Code is C++ but you don' t need to be a C++ guru, knowing the basics will serve you fine. Only one warning: you won 't get much out of this book is you don't spent a lot of time tinkering with the code presented and trying to extend it.

Just for its chapter of fuzzy logic this volume deserves 5 stars.Besides that, the lessons learned on Finite-State-Machines and graphs are great and find applications outside the realm of video games.Definitely a must-have volunteer for every software developer.

I thought this was a great book. Starts with simple concepts like state machines and works its way up. This examples in this book also helped me with structuring code in general. A great introduction to game AI that should get any indie developer up to speed with implementing most the common AI patterns. This is one of the books I use as reference as I work on my latest indie city building game, Pocket City.

The book save arrive and faster.This is why I need.thank you,you’re the best👍everything are awesome.very very recommended store.

The book is really comprehensive, even including a full chapter about mathematical and physical concepts before beggining with the code. All the code examples are well explained, and it's easy to apply them to whatever language you are coding on, if you are not usibg C++Keep in mind that this book is intended for users that already know how the basics of programming, not the absolute begginers.