COMP222 - 2020 - Second CA Assignment

COMP222 - 2020 - Second CA Assignment

Individual coursework

Game AI

Assessment Information

Assignment Number 2 (of 2)

Weighting 10%

Assignment Circulated 18 April 2020

Deadline Friday May 14, 17:00

Submission Mode Electronic - Canvas

Learning outcome assessed 2. An appreciation of the fundamental con￾cepts associated with game development:

game physics, game artificial intelligence, con￾tent generation;

3. The ability to implement a simple game us￾ing an existing game engine

Purpose of assessment To extend Assignment 1 with an Game AI as￾pects or to design and implement a tank bot

for the Robocode tank battle game

Marking criteria The marking scheme can be found in Section 2

Submission necessary in order No

to satisfy Module requirements?

Late Submission Penalty Standard UoL Policy.

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1 Disclaimer

There are two options to complete this assignment:

1. Extend Assignment 1 in order to add an artificially intelligent opponent

or any other elements of Game AI.

2. Implement a robot/tank in Robocode that ranks high in a competition

against 11 other preselected sample robots/tanks.

1.1 Objectives for extending Assignment 1

This option requires you to modify your submission for Assignment 1 in order

to incorporate elements from Game AI to your game. There is no strict

requirement on which elements of your game you will make “intelligent”.

In the case of Arkanoid, for example, one can develop an artificially in￾telligent opponent/paddle, whose behaviour follows a Game AI behaviour

model of your choice: for example, finite state machine, decision trees, be￾haviour trees, etc. Other elements can be made “intelligent”, e.g. the ball,

the obstacles, etc.

The gameplay should not be too easy or too hard. The gameplay should

be getting gradually harder as time progresses.

Hint Increasing the difficulty of beating the AI can be based on elapsed

time, decrease in obstacles, increasing number of wins, etc.

1.2 Objectives for Robocode

Robocode is a programming game, where the goal is to develop a robot battle

tank to battle against other tanks/robots. The robot battles are running in

real-time and on-screen. Robots can move, shoot at each other, scan for each

other, and hit the walls (or other robots). More details can be found on the

project web site, https://robocode.sourceforge.io/

This assignment requires you to design and implement a tank robot for

the Robocode tank battle game. You need to choose a game AI behaviour

model (such as, for example, finite state machine, decision trees, behaviour

trees, or any other mechanism of your choice) and implement your robot

based on this behaviour model.

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2 Marking scheme

I enforce a “no error policy” in this module: If your code

does not compile, your overall assignment mark will be

capped at 40%. Thus, you may get a higher mark for an

incomplete solution than for an advanced sketch.

You are required to submit Java code and an electronic document de￾scribing your design and implementation. The contribution of subtasks is as

follows.

2.1 Documentation (40% of the mark)

You are required to submit a 700 to 1 000 words document containing:

1. A short description of the behaviour control model of your choice (e.g.,

FSM, Decision trees, etc.). You only need to write a couple of para￾graphs to show your understanding of how the model works. 10 marks

2. A description of the AI design you followed to implement the AI element

in your game (e.g. the paddle-opponent) or the robot in Robocode.

In your design you should use the chosen behaviour control mecha￾nism. For example, if you choose FSMs to represent elements/bot’s

behaviour, give a graphical representation of states, transitions, and

conditions under which the machine switches from one state to an￾other. If you choose a tree-based model, give a graphical representation

of the tree and clearly indicate tests and actions. Justify your design

decisions. In particular, comment on why you believe these design de￾cisions makes your AI-element meaningful in improving the gameplay

or you robot/takn more likely win the tournament. 20 marks

3. A description of your implementation. Explain what classes and meth￾ods are used to implement the chosen behaviour model. You are not

restricted in HOW you implement the AI-element or robot/tank (you

can hard-code the behaviour in an ad-hoc manner, implement a gen￾eral scheme, or use a third-party library) but your mark will depend on

how closely you follow the design. You are allowed to deviate from the

design; however, if your implementation does differ from the design,

clearly identify and justify the modifications. 10 marks

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2.2 Implementation (30% of the mark)

The implementation will be marked as follows:

❼ Providing response to gameplay: The AI-element responds to game￾play. or the robot/tank responds to battle events (onScannedRobot,

onHitByBullet, onHitWall,. . . ) 10 marks

❼ Following the design 10 marks

❼ Clarity and style of code 10 marks

Note for Robocode Submissions When you create a new robot

in the editor use the following naming convention

Robot name: Please try to give your robot a unique name. That

could be FirstnameSecondname (for example, I would use

KonstantinosTsakalidis) without spaces and special characters

or a name that is unlikely to be chosen by others, e.g.,

Crusher15041991.

Please put your full name and student ID as a comment in the

beginning of every Java file that you submit.

Package name: use comp222

If you use a different package name, your bot might be

lost and not make it to the competition.

2.3 Runtime evaluation(30% of the mark)

Assignment 1 Extension The behaviour of the AI opponent will be as￾sessed by the level that it achieves the described behaviour, the gradual

progression of the gameplay difficulty.

Robocode Battle Competition Submitted bots will take part in a tour￾nament against 11 other standard sample bots. At least 10 rounds will be

played in a battlefield of default size. In the end, your bot will be ranked by

the Robocode Total Score. If it ends in the upper third of the ranking,

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it will get extra 30%; in the middle third, it will get extra 20%; and in the

lower third, it will get extra 10%.

You should make a reasonable effort to modify the default (bot skele￾ton in the editor) behaviour. Additionally, no robot with code taken

from elsewhere (with or without acknowledging the source) will be

allowed in the competition.

3 Deadlines and How to Submit

❼ Deadline for submitting the second assignment is Friday, 15 May 2020

at 5pm.

❼ Submission is via Canvas accessible from

https://liverpool.instructure.com/courses/18967/assignments/

71380/.

1. Submit the extended game as you did in Assignment 1.

2. In order to submit your bot, export it as a Jar file by choosing

Robot→“Package robot for upload” in the Robocode menu.

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