What is Game AI?

Many early video games avoided AI because it was a very challenging problem with the hardware available at the time. For example, Space Invaders, Galaga, and Galaxian all had aliens that moved in specific non-intelligent patterns. Early Atari games were either two-player games (Pong) or had the player interact with a non-intelligent environment (Breakout). One early and successful attempt at a game with AI was PAC-MAN. Each ghost in PAC-MAN had a different personality and would behave a little differently in the same circumstances. PAC-MAN also used a simple Finite State Machine (FSM). That is a type of AI where the AI behaves differently under different environmental circumstances. If the player ate a power pellet in PAC-MAN, the ghosts would all turn blue and suddenly become edible in a hunter-becomes-the-hunted reversal of fortune. While the ghosts could be...