By Joe Robinson 05 Sep 2018

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

UC Berkeley’s Overmind winning the first StarCraft AI Competition

OpenAI Five is a huge step forward for AI, but it’s also really intimidating for AI researchers. Never before has there been so many open tools for building AI systems, but it also feels like the barrier to entry for academics has actually increased over recent years. I posted an open call for any interested parties to build the best StarCraft AI possible back in 2009, and it was open to anyone interested in AI. Now, it seems like you need to have access to closed APIs, massive compute power, and historic training data to make advances in AI.

I’m putting this argument out there as a devil’s advocate, hoping that I can be proven wrong. I’d like to see more open competitions, and area’s where researchers without massive compute resources can continue to make advances in AI. Here’s some of the main issues I’ve seen with recent advances.

Closed APIs

OpenAI, to my knowledge, is using an API to build and train bots that is not available to academic researchers. If you’re a grad student that wants to build a bot for Dota2, then you’ll need to wait until the current competition ends and an open source version is eventually made available. For games likes Go, which have seen great progress with deep and reinforcement learning, this issue is not a problem. But if you’re a grad student that wants to work with video games that have large and active player bases your options are extremely limited. The DeepMind API for StarCraft 2 seems like a great option, but you’ll still have other challenges to face.

Dota 2 does provide a scripting interface, enabling bots to be written in Lua. However, this limited interface does not enable bots to communicate with remote processes and save data about games played.

Work Around: Find games with APIs that you can use. I used the Brood War API during grad school to write a bot for the original StarCraft. It was a huge hack and I somehow managed to get it working with Java, but I was extremely lucky that this project was not shut down by Blizzard. It’s great seeing the open source community continue to evolve both BWAPI and the Java version.

Bot debugging from an early BWAPI-Java prototype.

Compute is Expensive

OpenAI is spending massive amounts of compute power to train bots, and efforts by DeepMind to train Go bots were also substantial. This is an issue that OpenAI had addressed in a blog post, but it’s also discouraging for academics. It’s unlikely that students will have massive cloud computing resources available for training bots that perform at professional levels.

Work Around: Find sub-problems that you can solve. This is actually something that OpenAI did previously, by focusing on 1on1 matches and then slowly progressing up to 5v5 by relaxing more and more constraints. I included a tech-restricted matchup in the original StarCraft AI competition, but it wasn’t as popular as the full game option, in part because there weren’t human opponents knowledgeable about this version of the game for participants to train against.

One of the sub-problems in the original StarCraft AI Competition.

Training Data

One of the goals with my dissertation research was to build a StarCraft bot that learns from professional players, but now that some time has passed I realize that a different approach may have been move effective. Instead of showing my bot how to perform, I could have specified a reward function for how the bot should act and then let it self train. But, I didn’t have a good simulation environment, and had to rely on the sparse training data that I could scrape from the web at the time. This is especially a problem when you are working on sub-problems, such as 1on1 in Dota2, where professional replays simply don’t exist.

Work around: Mine data sets from the web, such as professional replays from sites like TeamLiquid. This won’t work for sub problems, but you can always bootstrap the replay collection with your own gameplay to get things rolling. I used third party tools to parse replays and then built an export tool with BWAPI later on.

Exhibition match at the first StarCraft AI Competition.

Next Steps

I’ve provided a pessimistic viewpoint for academics and hobbyists in game AI. It may seem like you need connections and massive compute power to make advances in game AI. It helps, but it doesn’t mean you’ll make progress without some great direction. Here’s some recommendations I have for making AI competitions more open moving forward:

• Open up APIs for bots to play against human opponents
• Provide a corpus of replay data
• Integrate with open source and cloud tooling

It’s now easy to get up and running with deep learning environments thanks to tools such as Keras, and environments like Colaboratory that make it easier to work with other researchers on models.

In a way, my initial call for research on open AI problems failed. It was an open problem, but I didn’t fully encourage participants to be open in their approach to the problem. Now, great tools exist for collaboration and it’s a great time to openly work on AI problems.

08.31.18

General

Nintendo Power Podcast episode 8

In Episode 8, host Chris Slate (previously editor-in-chief of the Nintendo Power magazine) is joined by Toph, a competitive Super Smash Bros.TM player and commentator, and JC Rodrigo from Nintendo Treehouse to discuss recent Super Smash Bros. Ultimate announcements, the competitive scene and their favorite fighting games. Read More

In Episode 8, host Chris Slate (previously editor-in-chief of the Nintendo Power magazine) is joined by Toph, a competitive Super Smash Bros.TM player and commentator, and JC Rodrigo from Nintendo Treehouse to discuss recent Super Smash Bros. Ultimate announcements, the competitive scene and their favorite fighting games. Read More

Welcome to Next Week on Xbox, where we cover all the new games coming soon to Xbox One! Every week the team at Xbox aims to deliver quality gaming content for you to enjoy on your favorite gaming console. To find out what’s coming soon to Xbox One, read on below and click on each of the game profiles for pre-order details (dates are subject to change).

Games

August 28, 2018

Xbox One X Enhanced – With tactical strategy that involves understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each island shape, it’ll be up to you to defend your island kingdom against ruthless Viking invaders. With procedurally-generated islands, command your soldiers against a charming (yet brutal) backdrop making it appealing for both hardcore strategy vets and newcomers alike.

 

Games

August 28, 2018

Xbox One X Enhanced – With an array of licensed leagues to choose from, a manager mode, improve player movements, animations, and control, along with photo-realistic stadiums, Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 has everything the hardcore and casual soccer fan is looking for.

Games

August 28, 2018

Xbox One X Enhanced – It’s up to one group of brave heroes to stand against Seteki the Witch Queen and her army of mummies. Enter the Strange Brigade! In this multiplayer, third-person action adventure you’ll solve challenging puzzles, seek out rare treasures, and shoot your way through armies of the undead. So get ready to grab your friends and embark on this multiplayer adventure on Xbox One.

Games

August 28, 2018

Demons known as the yokai have escaped, spreading fear across the land and stealing souls — and it’s up to you to stop them in this bullet-hell shoot ‘em up that takes place in a unique, Asian mythology-inspired world. Includes a variety of modes on Xbox One including Arcade, Hardcore, and local co-op.

 

Games

August 28, 2018

A multiplayer competitive party game where you must shoot, ram, dodge, and bully your opponents outside the screen with a variety of water gun weaponry. Inspired by classic arcade titles and competitive party games.

Games

August 29, 2018

Work with your teammates to pull off slam dunks, alley-oops, no-look passes, and outside shots to break the opposing team down in competitive games filled with the joy and energy of street basketball.

Games

August 29, 2018

Xbox Game Preview – Hungry and lost, you’re a survivor in a post-apocalyptic world with no one to trust. How do you stay alive? DayZ is the genre-defining open-world MMO survival sandbox full of heart-pounding moments, emergent gameplay, and dramatic player interactions.

Games

August 29, 2018

Abandoned years ago and marked as defective, Watt and Volt aim to prove themselves as deserving of a place to live in the world. With a unique co-op, swapping gameplay mechanic and challenging puzzles, you and a friend will see to it that Watt and Volt can achieve their dream.

 

Games

August 31, 2018

This horror game collection contains three Amnesia titles: The Dark Descent, A Machine For Pigs, and Justine. Experience the series that kickstarted the Let’s Play revolution and be immersed in three living nightmares that will chill you to the core.

Games

August 31, 2018

Features favorite Naruto characters and teams from the series including Naruto, Sasuke, and Team 7, battle as a team of four to compete against other online in this stunning, 4 v 4 fighting game. With a new and improved graphic style full of vivid colors, and dynamic ninja gameplay, it’ll be up to the players to fully take advantage of the vertical environments to come out on top.

Games

August 31, 2018

Inspired by the ‘80s and addictive gameplay, The VideoKid literally wears its inspiration on its sleeve as you hurl video cassettes through mailboxes to make some cash to take your girlfriend out on a date. Dodge mindless bystanders, pull off some epic grinds on the hoods of cars, and avoid the cops to stay alive.

 

Houndpicked Games has announced that it will be handling publishing duties for Troglobytes Games’ upcoming twin-stick shooter HyperParasite – which includes a future release on Switch.

HyperParasite is described as a “relentless twin-stick shooter/brawler with rogue-lite mechanics”, and looks full to the brim with funky ’80s-inspired visuals and fast-paced action. The game’s cast of characters features 60 different classes, with players able to exploit their attributes, weapons, and moves inside the comical, brawling action. 

There’s a total of 13 game levels on offer – five main levels and eight sub-levels – with a boss fight featured at the end of each main level and several mini-bosses scattered throughout. Make sure to check out the feature list and screenshots below for more information.

Features include:
– A fresh twist on the genre: hop from one host body to another
– 60 Playable Characters to Body-Snatch and utilise their attributes
– Unique retro 3D-pixelated visual style
– Original retro inspired synth-wave soundtrack
– Cast+weapon includes – cops+guns, Werewolves+claws, robots+lasers, aliens and so much more
– Procedurally generated levels that will play differently each time, challenging even the most seasoned of players
– Extremely fun co-op mode: will the humans handle TWO HyperParasites?

Development has only recently begun on the Switch version of the game, although the final release date is expected to match that of other platforms by launching in 2019.

What are your initial thoughts on this one? Will you be keeping an eye out for more news on this as it develops? Let us know below.

Grimstroke
– Stroke of Fate: reduced movement slow duration 2->1.5
– Stroke of Fate: movement slow can now be dispelled
– Stroke of Fate: reduced projectile vision radius (240->160)
– Stroke of Fate: reduced projectile’s endpoint vision radius (300->160) and duration (3.34->2)
– Stroke of Fate: fixed +600 range talent incorrectly updating the range preview
– Phantom’s Embrace: reduced phantom unit’s vision range 400->200
– Phantom’s Embrace: changed latch duration 4.0/4.5/5.0/5.5 -> 4.0/4.0/5.0/5.0
– Phantom’s Embrace: if the target dies, the Phantom now flies back to caster to refresh the cooldown
– Phantom’s Embrace: fixed a bug with +2 hits required talent only giving +1.3 hits (4 non-hero hits instead of 6)
– Ink Swell: reduced bonus movespeed 28/32/36/40->18/22/26/30
– Ink Swell: damage and stun amounts now range from 0 to max, instead of from a base value to max
– Ink Swell: ink tendril particle doesn’t display if the affected enemy unit is invisible
– Soulbind: no longer sees through invisibility on leashed targets
– Reduced model scale 0.81->0.76
– Fixed some tooltip values that didn’t updated with talent values
– Added some tooltip notes

Last week, Moments of Triumph came to a close to make way for the launch of Destiny 2: Forsaken. Today, we’re happy to announce that we’re introducing a brand new rewards program, built around Forsaken and linked to the Bungie Store to give you more ways to celebrate, commemorate, and show off your in game accomplishments.

As the Season of the Outlaw rolls on, Bungie Rewards will offer additional collector’s items to earn, acquire and unlock that are uniquely crafted to commemorate various tiers of in game accomplishments.

To sign up, you can visit the Bungie Rewards page now. As new offers are added to Bungie Rewards, we’ll update the page with more details.

In addition to Bungie Rewards going live today, we will also be giving away the Pursuit of Dreams in-game Destiny 2 emblem with any purchase from the Bungie Store now through November 28.