Artificial Intelligence for Games

The vast majority of software development books, whether it be for line-of-business app dev or game development, seem to have little to no information that can be found via a casual internet search. This book is one of the few exceptions. There is a refreshing breadth and depth of game AI knowledge in this book that has been of tremendous help. Unlike the common "Gems" series of books, this book contains enough information on nearly every topic for the reader to build a 'ground up' implementation of their own. My only complaints are that the pseudocode seems to be overly simplified and not as easily converted to a concrete implementation as I'd like, and that even for a book on game-specific AI implementations, the authors seem to enjoy a bit more of an academic/idealized approach to the design. That might be less bothersome to a professional game developer, but I'm at the hobbyist/indie level, and sometimes need a quick-and-dirty implementation before I begin to really understand what's going on. Having said that, I was able to use the book to learn about and implement goal-oriented action planning, fast and flexible A* path finding (with additional info on modified funnel algorithm online), and several other critical components. I would absolutely recommend this book.

I got this book a few weeks ago, and have just finished reading it cover to cover. It was well worth it. The book is well-written and understandable, and full of practical advice and real industry examples. Unlike most other AI books I've read, this one gives the impression of someone with real-world experience, looking over your shoulder and pointing out the pros and cons of each approach. In some cases, this means choosing a simpler (and more limited) technique over a fancier one. I have a couple of small gripes with the book: the pseudocode contains a number of errors (e.g., an incorrect sign or off-by-one error), and the section on neural networks failed to fully convey how useless these really are. But on the whole, it was a great read, with real value on every page. If you're thinking about writing AI for any game, you should start with this book.

Not a whole lot of "new" ideas, but it works great as a practical reference/refresher for common techniques. The example code isn't really my style, but it is generally clear and concise.

This is the first book that I've purchased on this subject. I found it to be very comprehensive, covering many areas of AI but with enough depth to make it practical for my application. My interest is in combat modeling, not necessarily gaming, so I was pleasantly surprised by the overall combat theme that ran throughout much of the book as well as the many useful combat-related examples. However, I would like to have seen a longer section on the topic of fuzzy logic; though it did give me enough information to understand its value in combat decision-making which encouraged me to expand to other books devoted entirely to fuzzy logic.

This book is an absolute masterpiece. It contains almost every simple and (surprisingly) almost every complex AI concept used in modern games. For my own game, I was able to pick it up and read through several sections and already have an idea on what to do. The license to the source code is very liberal and quite impressive. The book is also exceedingly well written and can read like a novel...if you're not too careful. Take your time. Absorb the meaning of the words and not just the mass of them.

Nice reading for a summer :) I'm not willing to implement those, because I'm more focused on web and data analysis, but the techniques explained here in how to cheat the user are really great and can be applied in the way of thinking when you face a problem in your daily work tasks.

For school

I've been reading this book for a personal project for the last couple months, and it's been everything I hoped it to be -- informative, detailed, and extremely helpful. I'd recommend this book to anybody who is looking to learn more about AI programming, because I've never seen it broken down before with such love for the subject.

Great book explaining in detail and providing pseudo code to get you started

Es un libro muy completo y con sus partes técnicas muy bien detalladas. El código incluido se puede encontrar en github y realmente ilustra mucho al momento de practicar conceptos. El autor tiene gran experiencia en el área y su escritura lo demuestra. Muy buen libro, recomendado a cualquiera que quiera aprender AI

Tem toda uma estrutura de ensino simples e com exemplos. Um site dedicado ao livro com os codigos fonte e erratas. Recomendo muito.

Très bon livre sur l'IA. Très complet il aborde et couvre un vaste choix de techniques et d'algo avec des exemples simples et clairs. Un must have

I use this as one of my core books for Game AI modules I lecture on. Very good introduction to game AI with plenty of good examples for techniques.