Today’s AI may not be able to meet the needs of the board game circle

I don’t want AI to destroy the board game market, but I do want to try a German-style board game designed by pure AI.

Article/Lao Lu

If we talk about what is the hottest thing after the Spring Festival this year, it is definitely AI that is about to pass the Turing test. First, the "amazing" AI drawing, and then the constantly surprising ChatGPT and New Bing, all of which are stimulating people's neurons, "warning" people's future.

For example, the various public relations drafts written by people using ChatGPT are completely comparable to those written by some public relations companies, and the effects of AI-drawn scenery paintings can meet various needs. Google has also begun to consider gradually reducing its hiring requirements and other matters for positions that can be replaced by AI. What many people are also worried about is that the evolving artificial intelligence will threaten human existence.

(Source: Baidu)

However, even if AI is now trained to be so advanced, there are still areas that they cannot cover, such as... Board games.

Welcome to count how many weird bugs there are (from our lovely Dolski’s trial)

At least in the Chinese version, when we search for board games in AI, most of the answers we can get are answers that seem to be okay but actually have many problems... And based on this messy information, AI is also not very capable of giving very good feedback. At the same time, it seems that with the current level of learning, AI’s understanding of board game rules cannot be said to be very deep. It can make some changes under the existing board game rules, but it cannot dismantle the board game rules. , and cannot be improved.

Board game design case from AI (still a trial from our lovely Dolski)

This also reflects that for the board game circle, there is still a long way to go to find a suitable AI, and once this solution is found, it may be the most difficult one for the board game circle. The problem - solo mode - seems to be really solved.

For a game, even an online game requires the existence of NPC, not to mention those stand-alone games. Therefore, since the emergence of the game, the design of these NPCs/enemies has been a very important part. If the design is too stupid, it will be completely worthless; but if the design is too difficult, it may make players lose their willingness to play, so we The attack patterns of enemies encountered in many RPG games are actually random switching of several sets of processes superimposed by countless algorithms. With the upgrade of technology, there are also pseudo-randomizations through pseudo-randomMechanism control parameters, etc., and the core of these designs is to achieve human-computer interaction, requiring both parties to make different choices and more changes according to different situations.

The emergence of AI may make these designs much simpler. If an AI with sufficient training can be built in, and then the scenes and parameters can be set, most of the work for many games may be completed. But this situation is completely insufficient for board games.

The board game itself is a highly interactive product. The designer can only show all the content he wants to show the players, but many additional derivatives are often not expected by the designer. And these changes have become one of the joys of playing board games. Everyone will make their own decisions based on the situation at that time, and the basis for everyone's decisions is also different. Therefore, many actions will be beyond the expectations of other players, some will bring extremely unexpected benefits, and some will just bring benefits. Come to more joyful "热operation".

Well, for example, take the case of the supernatural teacher. . . Picture source: Bilibili Daily Cards "Funny Moment Title Collection"

With the continuous changes in social life and the special circumstances that have emerged in recent years, more and more players have begun to seek a special situation, that is - how can I play board games alone? Following this, more and more crowdfunding projects will be asked whether there will be a single-player mode or a variant. In order to ensure the effectiveness of the project, project sponsors and designers will gradually begin to develop single-player modes. . Although the single-player mode is playable, the quality of development is usually unsatisfactory and there is a big gap compared to the usual gaming experience.

If you sort through the games with single-player modes in recent years, you will find that there are two names that cannot be avoided on this track - Dávid Turczi and Morten Monrad Pedersen.

Left: Dávid Turczi Right: Morten Monrad Pedersen

Dávid Turczi can be said to be the single-player mode designer with the strongest design ability in the board game circle, starting from "Days of Ire: Budapest 1956" in 2016 to the upcoming "Teotihuacan: City of Gods - Deluxe Master Set", he has participated in the single-player mode design of nearly one hundred games in total. The mechanisms of these single-player modes are different, but they can be regarded as tricks made by him, and the evaluation is also not bad.

Turczi has over a hundred solo works, here are the five highest ranked ones

The name Morten Monrad Pedersen will be a bit unfamiliar to many people, but if you say "

Automa", it is estimated that many people will be impressed. This word derived from the Italian "Automaton" has now become a symbol of the single-player mode, and it has also become the name of the Pedersen company (Automa Factory).

In the beginning, he just assisted Stonemaier Games in producing single-player modes for various games. The method he chose was to create a virtual machine that could

compete with players just like real players. , and then change the commonly used scoring mode to duel mode, so that players can play in a single player game. You can also experience the feeling of daily start. Through unremitting efforts, he also made a set of "programs" to achieve this goal, and this system was also named "Automa" by him (it is now customary to call it automaton in China).

Pedersen’s introduction to the Automa mechanism published on BGG, a total of five articles in the series

In this mechanism, Automa will try its best to turn itself into a player with a certain mindset and interact with real players through various actions. At the same time, it also ensures that real players cannot let the automata do what they want through "replacement" Profit yourself by taking actions that violate conventional logic.

With the help of this mechanism, he successfully designed the single-player modes of a number of games for Stonemaier Games, such as "Scroll of Civilization", "Scythe War", and "Wine Estate". In addition, he has designed many games for the well-known heavy strategy game

"Mysterious Land"The special automaton designed has also received good reviews on BGG.

Moreover, he is not conservative. He published the design ideas of Automa on BGG for more people to understand, and also hopes that new designers will be inspired. After many successful automatic machines, His team has also been expanded, and David J. Studley and Lines J. Hutter have joined to assist him in more work. On BGG, there is also a separate list that allows players to upload their own automatons designed for their favorite games for reference by all players.

It can be said that Automa is currently the most useful AI in the board game circle. The anthropomorphic design also allows players to experience the excitement of two-player mode when they are alone. However, Automa is still just a simple AI. It relies on the behavior of simulated people to make optimal solution strategies. In this way, many "fantastic ideas" that can only be thought of by real players will not be possible. Appearing in Automa, just like the junior AI may not necessarily solve the Zhenlong chess game, but some people can.

If we want AI to appear in tabletop games, what we need is a strategy machine with multiple players' minds. It may think of certain countermeasures in advance based on a certain situation and trigger them under specific conditions, giving people a sense of surprise; it may also find new ways to play when it falls behind.

If artificial intelligence can do this, we may not have to worry about having no one to start with. However, our expectations at that time may not be limited to this. We may hope that AI designs a board game independently and then observes it becoming the best game

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