Spelunky AI

[jmickle]

I've wanted to do this for a long time, and I finally found a way of doing it pretty nicely.

Basically, this game adds a new object. Just one. It exists in every room, and all it does is check variables and issues keyboard commands.

The idea is to get spelunky to play itself. Amusing and great fun (for me at least )

So far it isn't the smartest thing in the world, but can occasionally complete levels. It sometimes gets to level 2, rarely gets to level 3 and i dont think it has ever got to level 4 (let alone the jungle). This is out of over 500 runs so far (from initial development)

Issues: It get often get itself stuck in a loop. There is a desperation clause of throwing a bomb, which in most cases it will distance itself from and wait for it to explode before carrying on

It doesn't see spikes.

It doesn't see damsels.

I grabs the idol, but doesn't use money so is pointless (i did this for laughs) it doesn't even try to escape from the boulder, just carries on as if its not there.

It hates ledges. WITH A VENGENCE

and a few more i forgot.


It WILL skip the first dialogues and start the game automatically, and when it dies, will run out of the highscores and back to the game asap.

If it ever gets to the jungle level, it won't move I'm guessing. It should actually stay on the transition screen forever (unless you press X). But yeah, it's never gotten there so I haven't bothered coding it. I'll eventually make it handle the tunnel man payments, and use the shortcut house.

DOWNLOAD

please post your experiences/suggestions!

[Moloch]

I love games that play themselves! Please keep working on it.

Problems:
- After dying, he gets stuck in an endless loop leaving and re-entering the high scores room... I have to exit game.
- After closing program (due to above problem) whatever keyboard key was last held continues to be held down (so far it has been the shift key, but after pressing shift myself things went back to normal). Maybe add something the the oScreen > Game End event to clear the keyboard.

Suggestions:
- Remove the debug overlay text/circle for the released version (or toggle on/off with a key)
- Use a different file name for the stats file - once it is more automated (handling transitions etc), you can leave the game running for a few days or something and just check the stats to see how far it gets.
- Keys to increase/decrease room_speed; display current room speed in corner of screen.

[Patrick]

This is great!

I love the wierd things it does, like how he can ignore a spider for ages and then suddenly waste a rope killing it.

[jmickle]

i have fixed a few loops it gets itself into and it will kill itself if it's taking too long also. i will take off the green circle, i don't need it anymore any way. now if you press O it slows to 20 fps.

the endless highscore bug doesn't happen for me unless i whack the fps up really high. i'll try and fix it. also i knew about the shift bug, i'll try your suggestion thanks

i cleared my stats and left it running for an hour and the stats said he died most on spikes, which doesn't surprise me.