The first arcade games were made on clear logic and were strictly based on competition between the players. In those days there wasn’t any A.I. system.

Heuristic methods have been used in the arcade games. A [popular system of managing an NPC in the game was by scripting.

Path finding is a commonly used A.I. system in the real time strategy games. Path finding determines how to move an NPC from one place to another after considering the terrain and obstacles.

Games like Quake and Pursuit based all the opponent actions on particular stored patterns. The space invaders further improved these actions by adding in-game events which were dependent on the hash functions.

This resulted in a variety of complex enemy movements.

Pac-Man incorporated this technology at the same time jazzing it up by providing different personalities for each ghosts.

Even though the ghost movements in Pac-Man felt random, it was a cleverly scripted and well disguised action.

1990s saw the arrival of finite state machines. The arcade racing games were powered by a ‘rubber banding’ A.I. system.

If the computer decided the opponents “fall behind”, they received a superb boost allowing them to catch up.

The system too, works the other way around, enabling the human players to catch up if they fall behind. A good arcade shooting game must have a large rule base - list of NPC options like attack long range, call for help, flee etc.

The trick lies in using a random factor to choose from this base factor. This has provided an increased feeling of intellect and developed the entertainment quotient.

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