Virtual Quidditch

Raphael Crawford-Marks, at Hampshire College used breve to evolve players in a virtual game of Quidditch.

"Games make excellent challenge problems for Artificial Intelligence. Two-player turn-based games (Backgammon, Checkers, Chess) are easy to program, and AI players can be benchmarked against humans of varying skill levels. Recently, more complicated real-time team games have received attention from researchers in the Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) and Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) fields because of the dynamic environments and necessity for coordination. The RoboCup Soccer Simulator is the most popular and well-known of these environments. However, the soccer simulator is restricted to only two dimensions, and does not realistically model physics. This Division III thesis describes a simulator of the imaginary game Quidditch, and the automatic programming of quidditch-playing teams by Genetic Programming. These evolved teams of heterogeneous agents have offensive and defensive behaviors, and show the beginnings of real teamwork."