Advances in Computer Games: Many Games, Many Challenges (IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology) [Hardcover]

H. Jaap van den Herik (Editor), Hiroyuki Iida (Editor), Ernst A. Heinz (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 2003 | Series: IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology (Book 135)

This book is the tenth in a well-established series, originally describing the progress of computer-chess research only. While chess has dominated AI work in intelligent game-playing for almost half a century, games presumably harder than chess, such as Go, have moved into the spotlight in recent years. The research reported on herein reflects this growing trend with just 6 out of the 24 works overall still focussing on chess, equally many concentrating on Go, and the remaining 12 relating to checkers, Lines of Action, and a variety of other games.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 404 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (November 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402077092
• ISBN-13: 978-1402077098
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,693,181 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars surveys the field of game machine strategies, July 22, 2005

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W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Advances in Computer Games: Many Games, Many Challenges (IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology) (Hardcover)

It may come as a surprise to some, but computer games are a serious study of academic study, as showng by this book. Here, the games are strategy games, as opposed to the twitch games like Quake or Doom.

The book accurately reflects trends in our understanding of how to program strategies for the various games. Chess may be falling off simply because current chess algorithms are quite good. Ever since 97, when Deep Blue defeated world champion Gary Gasparov. Now, a chess program that plays at grandmaster level elicits little surprise. So it has been a good few decades for chess research, but diminishing returns in understanding may be setting in.

Whereas the book has articles on other games like Go, which are far harder to a machine to devise strong winning methods. A puzzling aspect about the book are the articles on draughts (checkers). It's a relatively simple game. Less depth than chess. While everything might not be known about machine strategies for draughts, how interesting are these?

Perhaps a future version of this book might have articles on various war games. These use far larger boards than Go, and have terrain information at each square or hex, and many different types of pieces.

Just in case you thought the field was getting fully known.