Murder Mansion AI surprises me (again) in Off Topic

ID:67770
 
May 5 2009, 9:10 am
Keywords: ai, murdermansion
So I'm running test rounds of Murder Mansion, and taking screenshots while I'm at it... Right now, I'm trying to take a bunch of screenshots of the same scenes that the old screenshots depict, to display as Before & After comparisons (I posted a couple of these a while back)

Anyways, I'm in the middle of taking the shots I need via print screen and pasting them into Paint Shop when I hear the round ending sound effect play (the church bell)

Now, this has happened once already today... The first time I went back to check on the game to find that the round had ended because the murderer had simply died (likely from a slip & fall, or getting hit by lightning) So I was expecting the same this time...

But no! This round had ended because one of the bots had successfully accused another bot of being the murderer!

In theory this shouldn't be a surprise... They are hopefully programmed competently enough to do just that... It's just that I've never actually witnessed it happen on its own (IE without my intervention)...lol I was beginning to think that it wouldn't happen...

I was also worrying that the murderer wasn't trying to do his/her job... In Deathmatch mode, everyone seems to be aggressive enough, but in Classic mode, I rarely witness an attack... I was beginning to think that my guys were being too conservative... (obviously, the murderer shouldn't be running around heedlessly killing everyone in sight in Classic mode, but they need to be doing at least some killing...lol)

But the fact that one bot went to accuse another proves one of three things had occured: they were attacked themselves, they witnessed an attack on someone else, or they had gathered sufficient crime scene clues to deduce a likely culprit... All three scenarios mean that the murderer had made an attack...

This puts one of my biggest worries (that the AI couldn't handle the Classic mode) to rest... I'm not sure if they're fully competent yet (to the point where they're a decent threat to win on either side), but at least I now know that they're at least trying to do their jobs...lol

The game is actually right on the verge of a release... In fact, I could probably put it up as is right now, but I want to do some more testing and tinkering...

As it is, even when it's released, it's likely to still have a whole host of bugs (as usual with my releases; I'm very bad at testing), so I'm trying to catch as many as I can right now (more than I have in the past)
#1 May 5 2009, 9:35 am
Why not, ya know, open it up for testing?
Pick a day, host it publicly, add in a few AIs, and play through a few rounds to get some decent testing in.

That's the best way to find bugs, involve "real" players!
#2 May 5 2009, 9:50 am (Edited on May 5 2009, 12:18 pm)
I gave that idea some thought, but the problem is that I'm never really around (or available) for the periods of consecutive time it would require to be of any use...

I guess with the game in its current, no-need-for-an-active-host state, I could just put it up, and then leave it unattanded, but I'd prefer to be around to catch things as they happen (especially for reports of things that don't necessarily throw up errors, but might not be operating quite the desired way)

If I find a stretch of decent free time before I decide to just release the game, I'll try to do just what you suggest, but if not, then I'll just fall back on my old, tried-and-true method of bug hunting (release the game, let players beat on it themselves and make bug reports, then release subsequent "patches")
#3 May 5 2009, 12:28 pm
They just finished a round of Clue on their own, though it took a heck of a long time... I need to look into speeding them up a bit (I'm not sure how just yet)

I do need to program in the ability for them to make the conclusion on specific elements in the event that no one else tells them that they're incorrect (for instance, if they make a suggestion that includes one or more of their dealt cards as an element, and no one tells them that any remaining elements are incorrect, then obviously, anyh remaining elements are in the solution; they don't have the cards, no one else has them, therefore...)

Currently, they ignore the strategy of killing other players to gain all of their cards at once, so I suppose that should go in (obviously, they won't all do it 100% of the time... should just be a once in a while thing)

[Edit:] And no, I haven't been around for the entire time since my last post (see previous comment to see why I'm making this point), I've been away from the computer off and on, and/or doing other things on the computer during the last few hours...