Air Hockey AI

GameLabs222

Hello all!

I'm somewhat new to GameSalad and I've been working on trying to make an air hockey game. I thought it would be a good place to learn a lot of basic concepts in GS. I want to be able to have two modes. One, a local multiplayer on the device and the other vs the computer with different difficulties.

I was wondering if anyone could help me better understand how to implement AI in a specific way for air hockey, or would want to help collaborate and build it with me?

jamie_c

If you're looking for a simple 'pong' kind of air hockey game, you would just have the AI goalie follow (constrain itself) the Y attribute of the puck. You might want to add some variation to the constraint so it's not impossible to beat, or maybe only have the AI goalie follow the puck when the puck is on it's side of the screen.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

Yep it's easy to build a invincible AI the hard part is one that performs human and makes errors.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

Yes I use a table to store all the speed, timing et...info related to a difficulty level. This way once I have my rules and behaviors setup I only need one set and all the info for speed is directed to the table. I use a number system for difficulty so say row one is hit speed and col 1,2 and 3 are the levels.. So in the behavior speed in the expression editor it would look like this TABLECELLVALUE(difficulty.tbl,1,game.difficulty).

And as to glow hockey being the best, you haven't seen mine yet..lol. ; )

kinzua

please clear out your intentions. Are you wanting to learn how to do it or you wanting to hire someone to do the complete project?

The_Gamesalad_Guru

You mean like this. @RP and I's game has AI. AI is pretty complex stuff for being new. Can't be explained in a post. The red paddle you see is computer controled. Took me weeks to build a working AI and months to perfect it.

RP

You can get all mad scientist as far as difficulty levels go, but don't make it too hard. Even a modest AI can turn into a frankenstein. A few years back there was a iOS pong/hockey game called iPuckrrrrr, it was basic in design, fun, cheeky, but had an insane AI difficulty level. The AI would track the puck perfectly so you were basically going to fail against a machine that never misses. It's kinda weird having to engineer various scenarios that would hinder or cause the AI to fail, but that's what it is all about.

GameLabs222

Thanks for the replies. @kinzua My intentions are not to just have answers given to me but rather to learn more advanced things. I just figured two heads may be better than one on something like AI.

Perhaps I should start a thread and link a shared file in which people can freely collaborate on it. I don't want to mooch, I figured many people would benefit from it.

@FryingBaconStudios I understand it would be very difficult, (esp considering I'm an artist) but I don't want to do things because they are easy.

@RP I agree. Insane difficulties ruin entertainment value and just all around aren't fun. You result to trying to move the paddle back and forth as fast as you can in front of the goal.

kinzua

@Brenton222 please don't misunderstand me. Most of us are artists out here, and a lot of seekers come in looking for a hunt :ar! . I'd like to welcome you on this thought of yours. Please initiate a project, i'd personally love to contribute. L-)

The_Gamesalad_Guru

I understand and welcome but part of your post was you were new and looking for a easy project to start with. I just wouldn't classify build an AI at this stage of you GS knowledge as easy, in fact it very advanced stuff. No offense was meant.

PBEmpire

move paddle at a certain speed??

tatiang

move paddle at a certain speed??

It's really hard to know how to answer an incomplete sentence. Are you asking for help, asking for a clarification, or making a suggestion?

RP

move paddle at a certain speed??

It's really hard to know how to answer an incomplete sentence. Are you asking for help, asking for a clarification, or making a suggestion?

Yeah, I didn't wanna touch that one. lol

GameLabs222

My goal is to have an AI that behaves like or better than the computer in "Glow Hockey" on the app store. Probably the best AI in terms of air hockey. (That's a lofty goal, I know.)

@FryingBaconStudios No offense was taken. I've watched your tutorials and they have helped me a lot in terms of getting the very fundamental blocks laid down. And I can tell that AI is going to be very very difficult. But I am eager to learn, and I've been giving it thought.

-I can imagine I need it to follow the puck along the y axis at a given slower speed determined by difficulty

-When to strike the puck and where on the puck (within a certain distance and a little after it crosses the middle of the board)

-When to return back to defensive mode by the goal (probably after a strike has happened)

So I have some basic ideas of the things I'm going to have to tell the computer how exactly to behave, and giving it a human feeling is going to be extremely difficult.

So as someone who has built an AI, do you have any pointers on where to start for a beginner on the issue, like should I learn how to use tables, etc?