Title
Automated Playtesting With Procedural Personas Through MCTS With Evolved Heuristics
Abstract
This paper describes a method for generative player modeling and its application to the automatic testing of game content using archetypal player models called procedural personas. Theoretically grounded in psychological decision theory, procedural personas are implemented using a variation of Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) where the node selection criteria are developed using evolutionary computation, replacing the standard UCB1 criterion of MCTS. Using these personas, we demonstrate how generative player models can be applied to a varied corpus of game levels and demonstrate how different playstyles can be enacted in each level. In short, we use artificially intelligent personas to construct synthetic playtesters. The proposed approach could be used as a tool for automatic play testing when human feedback is not readily available or when quick visualization of potential interactions is necessary. Possible applications include interactive tools during game development or procedural content generation systems where many evaluations must be conducted within a short time span.
Year
DOI
Venue
2018
10.1109/TG.2018.2808198
arXiv: Artificial Intelligence
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Games,Computational modeling,Testing,Mathematical model,Peer-to-peer computing,Psychology,Monte Carlo methods
Journal
11
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
4
2475-1502
6
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.53
7
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Christoffer Holmgård19910.81
Michael Cerny Green2317.17
Antonios Liapis338350.22
Julian Togelius42765219.94