Can we save near-dying games? An approach using advantage of initiative and game refinement measures
Htun Pa Pa Aung(a), Mohd Nor Akmal Khalid(a), Hiroyuki Iida(a)
a)School of Information Science
Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, 923-1211 Ishikawa, Japan
*{htun.pp.aung, akmal, iida}[at]jaist.ac.jp
Abstract
Games are attractive and engaging due to the complexity they pose to the player. Some games are complex enough which made them attractive to play. However, popular games would lose their attractiveness due to the large advantage of initiative. High-performance AI like AlphaZero suggests from their actual games played that advantage of the first player would become larger as the performance level increases. This implies that games with a large advantage of the initiative would lose their attractiveness due to the unfairness. This paper explores an innovative way to make a game stay attractive. A link between the advantage of initiative and performance level is investigated while using Scrabble AI. Using two measures: the advantage of initiative and game refinement, possible treatments are considered. The experimental results with Scrabble AI suggest that reduction of search space from 15x15 to 13x13 board size is a possible enhancement.
Keywords: Game complexity, Game refinement theory, Advantage of Initiative, Scrabble
Topic: Informatic and Information System