Newsgroups: comp.ai.alife,comp.ai.genetic
From: christian@darkin.demon.co.uk (Christian Darkin)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!demon!christian
Subject: Genetic Game
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Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1994 00:21:00 +0000
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai.alife:1261 comp.ai.genetic:4213

This is a posting about a videogame.

Ok, that`s a subject that might seem a little out of place on this newsgroup
but I don`t think it is.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a game idea in rec.games.programmers.  
Almost instantly, a group of people came forward and picked up on it as a 
project they wanted to develop.  Since then, we`ve started to put together
a development team for the project.  We all think it`s very exciting.  The 
basic idea goes something like this:

Remember `Space Invaders`?  Blocks of dumb, stupid aliens coming down the 
screen at you, waiting to get shot out of the sky.  All you needed to do 
was blast away at them until they were all gone.  Now imagine if they 
weren`t identical.  Imagine that each one was slightly different from its`
brothers.  Those aliens that survived for longest would be the best adapted
ones.  The slow, the weak, the passive would be the first to be destroyed.
Only the fittest, the most intelligent would survive.

And they would survive to breed.  From the last few aliens, the next
generation would be created.  Slightly stronger.  Slightly faster.  Slightly
fitter.  The offspring would become the next attackers.  And so on...

This kind of game would be the perfect environment for experimenting with
genetic algorithms and artificial intelligence.  After each new generation,
the resulting new species would be committed to disc so that every time the
game was played, the evolution would advance.  Over a period of weeks and 
months of play, natural selection would evolve better and cleverer 
creatures.  

If there`s anyone who thinks this is an interesting project.  If you`d like
to get involved, or try out some theories, or if you just want to throw some
ideas around, please get in contact.

You can email Greg Taylor who`s co-ordinating things 
(gtaylor@oboe.aix.calpoly.edu)

or me, Christian Darkin
christian@darkin.demon.co.uk

Thanks for your interest.

                            





