Monte Carlo Tree Search for Collaboration Control of Ghosts in Ms. Pac-Man

Author

Kien Quang Nguyen ; Thawonmas, Ruck

Author_Institution

Intell. Comput. Entertainment Lab., Ritsumeikan Univ., Kusatsu, Japan

Volume

5

Issue

1

fYear

2013

fDate

Mar-13

Firstpage

57

Lastpage

68

Abstract

In this paper, we present an application of Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) to control ghosts in the game called Ms. Pac-Man. Our proposed ghost team consists of a ghost controlled by rules and three ghosts controlled individually by different MCTS. Given a limited time response, in order to increase the reliability of MCTS results, we introduce a mechanism for predicting Ms. Pac-Man´s future movements and use this mechanism for simulating Ms. Pac-Man during Monte Carlo simulations. Our ghost team won the first Ms. Pac-Man Versus Ghost Team Competition at the 2011 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC). Its performances for a variety of design choices are also shown and discussed.

Keywords

Monte Carlo methods; computer games; groupware; tree searching; 2011 IEEE CEC; 2011 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation; MCTS results reliability; Monte Carlo simulations; Monte Carlo tree search; Ms. Pac-Man; Ms. Pac-Man Versus Ghost Team Competition; ghost collaboration control; movement prediction; video game; Collaboration; Computers; Games; Monte Carlo methods; Prediction algorithms; Reliability; Time factors; Ghosts; Monte Carlo; Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS); Pac-Man;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1943-068X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TCIAIG.2012.2214776

Filename

6307831