Course Description

Lecturers:

Prof. Michael Thielscher, Stephan Schiffel

Prerequisites:

Programming expertise

A General Game Playing System is one that can accept a formal description of a game and play the game effectively without human intervention. Unlike specialized game players, such as Deep Blue, GGP systems cannot rely on algorithms designed in advance for specific games. GGP expertise depends on intelligence on the part of the game player and not just intelligence on the part of the programmer of the game player. For this reason, GGP is a good area in which to develop and demonstrate General AI techniques (such as knowledge representation, reasoning, learning, and rational behavior). This course is a hands-on introduction to GGP and, by extension, Artificial Intelligence. Theoretical background is provided through lectures, but the main pedagogical value of the course derives from the students´ work in using this theory to create GGP systems to compete with each other.

Time Table

• Mondays (from 23rd October to 27th November):
  • 6. DS Tutorial (E005)
• Thursdays (from 12th October to 16th November):
  • 4. DS Lecture (E005)

Consultations

During the Open House or by appointment.

Details about the Examination

oral examination

Announcements

• We will run the tests of your programs on Wednesday, 10 January 2007, between 1.30pm and 7pm in our lab (room 2026). We want to test that your programs are able to communicate with the Gamemaster and submit legal moves. Passing this test is a prerequisite for the exam and for taking part in the final competition in April. During the test your player will probably play 4 or 5 different games and depending on your player this might take up to 3 hours, but probably less. If you have problems with your player or questions regarding the test, send me an email or come to my office.
• There are some hints on how you can improve your player in this exercise sheet.

Handouts and Slides

• Lecture 1 (Thu, 12 Oct 2006)
• Lecture 2 (Thu, 19 Oct 2006)
• Lecture 3 (Thu, 26 Oct 2006)
• Lecture 4 (Thu, 02 Nov 2006)
• Lecture 5 (Thu, 09 Nov 2006)
• Lecture 6 (Thu, 16 Nov 2006)

Tutorials

• Tutorial 1 (Mon, 23 Oct 2006)
• Tutorial 2 (Mon, 30 Oct 2006)
  You can test your game description for syntax errors here.
  The slides about the communication protocol can be found here.
• Tutorial 3 (Mon, 06 Nov 2006)
• Tutorial 4 (Mon, 13 Nov 2006)
• Tutorial 5 (Mon, 20 Nov 2006)
• Tutorial 6 (Mon, 27 Nov 2006)

Additional References

• GGP website of Stanford University
• Specification of the GDL and description of the communication protocol
• The instance of Gamemaster for this class
• Java classes providing the communication with Gamemaster