Tags:Answer Set Programming, Artificial Intelligence, Game Programming, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Logic Programs, Rule-based Systems and Unity
Abstract:
Rule-based declarative formalisms enjoy several advantages when compared with imperative solutions, especially when dealing with AI-based application development: solid theoretical bases, no need for al- gorithm design or coding, explicit and easily modifiable knowledge bases, executable declarative specifications, fast prototyping, quick error de- tection, modularity. For these reasons, ways for combining declarative paradigms, such as Answer Set Programming (ASP), with traditional ones have been significantly studied in the recent years; there are how- ever relevant contexts, in which this road is unexplored, such as devel- opment of real-time games. In such a setting, the strict requirements on reaction times, the presence of computer-human interactivity and a generally increased impedance between the two development paradigms make the task nontrivial. In this work we illustrate how to embed rule- based reasoning modules into the well-known Unity game development engine. To this end, we present an extension of EmbASP, a framework to ease the integration of declarative formalisms with generic applications. We prove the viability of our approach by developing a proof-of-concept Unity game that makes use of ASP-based AI modules.
Integrating Rule-Based AI Tools into Mainstream Game Development