The earliest arcade games were built on clear logic and were restricted to competition between the players. Therefore there wasn’t any A.I. system.
Peculiar algorithms have been used in the arcade games. A [popular method of controlling an NPC in the game was by scripting.
Path finding is another common A.I. system that has been used in the real time strategy games. Path finding works by calculating how to get an NPC from one place to another after considering the terrain and obstacles.
Games like Quake and Pursuit based all the enemy moves on particular stored patterns. The space invaders further refined this movement by adding in-game events which were dependent on the hash functions.
This resulted in more varied and complex enemy movements.
Pac-Man incorporated this technology at the same time jazzing it up by providing different personalities for each ghosts.
Even hough the ghost movements in Pac-Man felt random, in reality it was a scripted and disguised action.
1990s saw the arrival of finite state machines. The arcade racing games were powered by a ‘rubber banding’ A.I. system.
If the computer controlled the opponents “fall behind”, they received a superb boost allowing them to catch up.
The system is programmed to enable human players to catch up if they fall behind. The arcade shooting games should ideally have a large rule base which is basically the list of NPC options like attack long range, call for help, flee etc.
The secret lies in using a random factor to choose from this base factor. This has provided an increased sense of intellect and developed the fun quotient.
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