AI-Based Game Design: Enabling New Playable Experiences

With the current set of design tools and methods available to game designers, vast portions of the space of possible games are not currently reachable. In the past, technological advances such as improved graphics and new controllers have driven the creation of new forms of gameplay, but games have still not made great strides into new gameplay experiences. We argue that the development of innovative artificial intelligence (AI) systems plays a crucial role in the exploration of currently unreachable spaces. To aid in exploration, we suggest a practice called AI-based game design, an iterative design process that deeply integrates the affordances of an AI system within the context of game design. We have applied this process in our own projects, and in this paper we present how it has pushed the boundaries of current game genres and experiences, as well as discuss the future AI-based game design.