Platforms for Game-Based AI Research

Counter-Strike:Source is an action/first-person shooter multiplayer game developed by Valve Software using the Source Engine. Its SDK, written in C++, is available for developers wich want to make mods and custom bots.

Adventure Game Studio is a multi-platform real-time engine that includes an easy-to-use editor to create adventure games similar to the early 90's Sierra and Lucas Arts titles. It alows C#/Java scripting for game logics and also imports a lot of file extensions for sounds, images and videos.

Infinite Mario Bros is an open-source game written in Java that mimics the classical action/platform game Super Mario Bros. It was made for programming contests, like Mario AI Championship. A similar open-source project is Secret Maryo Chronicles, written in C++.

Open Sonic is an open-source 2D action/platform game wich mimics the classical Sonic The Hedgehog Sega game. New items, enemies and bosses may be created with Object Scripts, or changing its source code, written in C.

Baldur's Gate is a role-playing game released by BioWare in 1998. The game follows the Forgotten Realms RPG rules and was developed with the Infinity Game Engine. There are some unofficial tools, like Near Infinity, Dialog Checker and Weidu, to customize the game making mods.

Neverwinter Nights is a role-playing game developed by BioWare and follows the 3rd Dungeons & Dragons rules. For game modding there is the official Aurora Neverwinter Toolset, that allows the modification of several game aspects and AI programming by NWScripts.

RunUO is an open-source MMORPG server application for Ultima Online (UO) emulation. Fans of this game developed several unofficial server emulators wich allows a wide customization of the game aspects. RunUO is one of these and was written in C#. It accepts connection from official UO client and also unofficial, like Iris 2.

Flight Gearis an open-source project wich offers a sophisticated framework for realistic 3D flight simulations. It was written in C++ and customizations can be done on source code or by 3rd party extensions.

TORCS is an open-source 3D race simulator with an accurate physics for this purpose. It was written in C/C++ and the opponents AI can be modified on the platform source code.

Super Tux Kart is an open-source racing game, similar to Super Mario Kart. New vehicles configurations can be inserted from XML add-ons and the AI customization for them written in C++.

Civilization IV is a turn-based strategy game developed by Firaxis Games. The XML interface offers the possibility to configure several parameters of the game. Another way is to use the Civ4 SDK that allows developers to change the source code of the game and compile it generating a DLL that replaces the traditional one.

ORTS is a real-time strategy engine implemented in a client/server architecture with 2D or 3D graphics. The server side loads scene configurations and waits for clients connection. The units AI shall be written in C++ in the client side. This platform was used from 2006 to 2009 in the ORTS Game AI Competition promoted by the AIIDE.

StarCraft is a real-time strategy game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. For StarCraft there is an unofficial API, called BWAPI, for AI modules creation which has been used in StarCraft AI Competition. The second release of the game allows modification by an official tool called StarCraft II Editor.

Wargus is a mod for Warcraft II, a real-time strategy game released by Blizzard Entertainment in 1995. It is an open-source project organized in two levels: the Stratagus Engine with game core and a higher level for game logics implemented in Lua.