Combat Games Research Articles

Video Game Interface Design Patterns to Facilitate Human-Agent Teaming

User interface design patterns that document Human-Agent Team (HAT) interface best practices were developed by analyzing team video games with different types of agents, ranging from virtual players in sports games to advisors contributing to strategy and planning in combat games. One factor that may contribute to the enormous success of some games is the cohesive team interactions between humans and agents. A design pattern collection was developed by identifying 25 design patterns under interface themes most relevant to HATs. The design patterns describe how multiple successful game interfaces handle challenging aspects of HAT interaction, addressing contexts including planning, spatial orientation, task management, communication, and more. Based on the complex and well-tested interface solutions in video games, these design patterns can provide HAT user interface developers practical guidance for interface development and a starting point for developing a HAT design pattern language.

Model Representation Considerations for Artificial Intelligence Opponent Development in Combat Games

The performance and behavior of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) opponent in games requires coordination of multiple agents and complex tasks depends on many design choices made during implementation. Currently, gaming agents developed with Reinforcement Learning (RL) methods are constructed to play the game, leading to natural design choices for observations, actions, and rewards that are congruent with a human player's actions and objectives. However, in simulation and serious games, the objective of the implemented opponent should be developed in a way that supports the learning objectives for the user, such as by including additional ground truth environment data in the observation space or action structure. Therefore, the reward structure for the AI needs to incorporate more sophisticated considerations than just whether the game was won or lost by the AI. In this way the design space for opponent AI in these settings is considerably broader than what is traditionally used for RL gaming AI. This paper considers the implications of observation representation and reward design for the AI agent and associated actions in the context of 2-player battlefield-type games that are not strictly zero-sum. Semi-cooperative and fully competitive models are considered. The environment in these games is a spatially extended battlefield in which agents must maneuver their forces to bring them into combat range of each other. The objective of the game is control over a pre-specified location in the game, and combat is executed via Lanchester attrition. We demonstrate the impact of aggregation on stochasticity of the model, where aggregation of the state model is controlled by various entropy-based metrics, as well as on the policy learned by an RL agent. Generalizations to alternative scenarios and objectives are discussed, as well as applications to the development of an AI combat opponent that can cohesively manage its forces over multiple scales.

Engolo and Capoeira. From Ethnic to Diasporic Combat Games in the Southern Atlantic

This article provides a re-examination of the main Afrocentric narrative of capoeira origins, the engolo or ‘Zebra Dance’, in light of historical primary sources and new ethnographic evidence gathered during fieldwork in south-west Angola. By examining engolo’s bodily techniques, its socio-historical context and cultural meanings, the piece emphasises its insertion into a pastoral lifestyle and highlights the relatively narrow ethnic character of the practice in Angola. This analysis and the comparison with capoeira helps us to develop certain hypotheses about the formation, migration, and re-invention of diasporic combat games between southern Angola and coastal Brazil, and more broadly, to increase our understanding of how African cultures spread across the southern Atlantic.

Technical\u2013tactical analysis of small combat games in male kickboxers: effects of varied number of opponents and area size

BackgroundTo handle the competition demands, sparring drills are used for specific technical–tactical training as well as physical–physiological conditioning in combat sports. While the effects of different area sizes and number of within-round sparring partners on physiological and perceptive responses in combats sports were examined in previous studies, technical and tactical aspects were not investigated. This study investigated the effect of different within-round sparring partners number (i.e., at a time; 1 vs. 1, 1 vs. 2, and 1 vs. 4) and area sizes (2 m × 2 m, 4 m × 4 m, and 6 m × 6 m) variation on the technical–tactical aspects of small combat games in kickboxing.MethodTwenty male kickboxers (mean ± standard deviation, age: 20.3 ± 0.9 years), regularly competing in regional and national events randomly performed nine different kickboxing combats, lasting 2 min each. All combats were video recorded and analyzed using the software Dartfish.ResultsResults showed that the total number of punches was significantly higher in 1 versus 4 compared with 1 versus 1 (p = 0.011, d = 0.83). Further, the total number of kicks was significantly higher in 1 versus 4 compared with 1 versus 1 and 1 versus 2 (p < 0.001; d = 0.99 and d = 0.83, respectively). Moreover, the total number of kick combinations was significantly higher in 1 versus 4 compared with 1 versus 1 and 1 versus 2 (p < 0.001; d = 1.05 and d = 0.95, respectively). The same outcome was significantly lower in 2 m × 2 m compared with 4 m × 4 m and 6 m × 6 m areas (p = 0.010 and d = − 0.45; p < 0.001 and d = − 0.6, respectively). The number of block-and-parry was significantly higher in 1 versus 4 compared with 1 versus 1 (p < 0.001, d = 1.45) and 1 versus 2 (p = 0.046, d = 0.61) and in 2 m × 2 m compared with 4 m × 4 m and 6 × 6 m areas (p < 0.001; d = 0.47 and d = 0.66, respectively). Backwards lean actions occurred more often in 2 m × 2 m compared with 4 m × 4 m (p = 0.009, d = 0.53) and 6 m × 6 m (p = 0.003, d = 0.60). However, the number of foot defenses was significantly lower in 2 m × 2 m compared with 6 m × 6 m (p < 0.001, d = 1.04) and 4 m × 4 m (p = 0.004, d = 0.63). Additionally, the number of clinches was significantly higher in 1 versus 1 compared with 1 versus 2 (p = 0.002, d = 0.7) and 1 versus 4 (p = 0.034, d = 0.45).ConclusionsThis study provides practical insights into how to manipulate within-round sparring partners' number and/or area size to train specific kickboxing technical–tactical fundamentals.Trial registrationThis study does not report results related to health care interventions using human participants and therefore it was not prospectively registered.

Generative Methods for Guard and Camera Placement in Stealth Games

Enemy observers, such as cameras and guards, are common elements that provide challenge to many stealth and combat games. Defining the exact placement and movement of such entities, however, is a non-trivial process, requiring a designer balance level-difficulty, coverage, and representation of realistic behaviours. In this work we explore systems for procedurally generating both camera and guard placement in a stealth game context. For the former we use an approach based on weakening theoretical results for optimal camera placement, while for the latter we perform automatic roadmap construction, generating more specific patrol behaviours through a grammar-based technique. We evaluate both approaches with a non-trivial implementation in Unity3D, and apply quantitative metrics to demonstrate how different parametrizations can be used to control level difficulty without sacrificing believability.

Research on Dynamic Evolution Model and Method of Communication Network Based on Real War Game.

Based on the data in real combat games, the combat System-of-Systems is usually composed of a large number of armed equipment platforms (or systems) and a reasonable communication network to connect mutually independent weapons and equipment platforms to achieve tasks such as information collection, sharing, and collaborative processing. However, the generation algorithm of the combat system in the existing research is too simple and not suitable for reality. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a communication network generation algorithm by adopting the joint distribution strategy of power law distribution and Poisson distribution to model the communication network. The simulation method is used to study the operation under continuous attack on communication nodes. The comprehensive experimental results of the dynamic evolution of the combat network in the battle scene verify the rationality and effectiveness of the communication network construction.

Effects of Adding Small Combat Games to Regular Taekwondo Training on Physiological and Performance Outcomes in Male Young Athletes.

This study investigated the effect of area sizes (4 × 4, 6 × 6, and 8 × 8 m) and effort-pause ratios (free combat vs. 1:2) variation on the physiological and perceptive responses during taekwondo combats (Study 1). In a second study, the effects on physical performance of 8 weeks of small combat-based training added to regular taekwondo training were investigated (Study 2). In random order, 32 male taekwondo athletes performed six (i.e., two effort-to-pause ratios × three area sizes conditions) different 2-min taekwondo combats (Study 1). Thereafter (Study 2), they were randomly assigned to three experimental groups (4 × 4, 6 × 6, and 8 × 8 m) and an active control group (CG). Regarding Study 1, blood lactate concentration [La] before and after each combat, mean heart rate (HRmean) during each combat, and rating of perceived exertion (CR-10) immediately after each combat were assessed. Regarding Study 2, progressive specific taekwondo (PSTT) to estimate maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max), taekwondo-specific agility, and countermovement jump (CMJ) tests were administered before and after 8 weeks of training. Study 1 results showed that 4 × 4 m elicited lower HRmean values compared with 6 × 6 m (d = −0.42 [small], p = 0.030) and free combat induced higher values compared with the 1:2 ratio (d = 1.71 [large], p < 0.001). For [La]post, 4 × 4 m area size induced higher values than 6 × 6 m (d = 0.99 [moderate], p < 0.001) and 8 × 8 m (d = 0.89 [moderate], p < 0.001) and free combat induced higher values than 1:2 ratio (d = 0.69 [moderate], p < 0.001). Higher CR-10 scores were registered after free combat compared with 1:2 ratio (d = 0.44 [small], p = 0.007). For Study 2, VO2max increased after training [F (1, 56) =30.532, p < 0.001; post-hoc: d = 1.27 [large], p < 0.001] with higher values for 4 × 4 m compared with CG (d = 1.15 [moderate], p = 0.009). Agility performance improved after training [F (1, 56) = 4.419, p = 0.04; post-hoc: d = −0.46 [small], p = 0.04] and 4 × 4 m induced lower values in comparison with 6 × 6 m (d = −1.56 [large], p = 0.001) and CG (d = −0.77 [moderate], p = 0.049). No training type influenced CMJ performance. Smaller area size elicited contrasting results in terms of metabolic demand compared with larger sizes (i.e., lower HRmean but higher [La] and CR-10), whereas free combat induced variables' consistently higher values compared with imposed 1:2 ratio (Study 1). Taekwondo training is effective to improve VO2max and agility (Study 2), but small combat training modality should be investigated further.

Engolo e capoeira. Jogos de combate étnicos e diaspóricos no Atlântico Sul

Resumo: Este artigo reexamina a principal narrativa afrocêntrica sobre as origens da capoeira, o engolo ou “dança da zebra”, à luz de fontes primárias históricas e material etnográfico novo, coletado durante pesquisa de campo no Sudoeste de Angola. Examinando as técnicas corporais do engolo, seu contexto sócio-histórico e seus significados culturais, o texto enfatiza sua inserção num modo de vida agropastoril e demonstra o caráter étnico relativamente limitado dessa prática em Angola. Essa análise e a comparação com a capoeira permitem desenvolver algumas hipóteses sobre a formação e migração de jogos de combate do Sudoeste angolano e sua reinvenção diaspórica no litoral brasileiro. De maneira mais abrangente, a trajetória do engolo contribui para entender melhor a disseminação de culturas africanas pelo Atlântico Sul.

Behavioral Escalation: Video Games as a Tool of Hybrid War

Gaming industry in its short span of around forty years has evolved from a hobby to a huge economic industry. However, undeniably, incredible advancement in video game graphics has allowed this virtual world to manipulate and escalate its consumer's behavior. Violent video games, according to Professor Robert Sparrow, have long been used for political contestation and social unrest. The study serves to analyze behavioral escalation through video games. This study has used Ian Bogust's Procedural Rhetoric as a methodology to analyze video games. The results showed that video games are persuasive interactive medium that escalate behavior and have great potential to be used as a tool of Hybrid war. Louis Jones stated that propaganda and unconventional warfare is not a new thing, it dates back to Greeks when they left wooden horse at Troy. Colin Gray, military strategist, described the future warfare as similar to the historical one but with modern means of technology. The new virtual means of warfare have not altered the nature of warfare but have developed its new ways. Combat games are more realistic in sense of its enhanced graphics and presentation. This study points towards the great potential in video games to work as a tool for Hybrid war.

Optimising martial arts training by using gymnastics exercises

Engaging in high-performance competitions (World Combat Games, World Championships, European and/or Balkan Championships) has made it necessary for the martial technique to have the benefit of knowledge from other sports disciplines as well, particularly gymnastics, acrobatic and artistic gymnastics, in order to give greater weight to competition artistic programmes which, throughout the world, reach degrees of complexity that had not been encountered until a few years ago. The research objectives from our study aims to are to elaborate a concise and efficient material on the factors that have led to the achievement of the performance presented in the preamble of the paper. We believe that the judicious combination of Ju-jitsu technical elements and artistic and rhythmic gymnastics elements may decisively contribute to achieving exceptional performances and consolidating motor skills and competences. We shall thus venture to say that the differences between the two groups rise from the implementation of superior Ju-jitsu techniques and acrobatic and artistic gymnastics elements.The training period, the development and completion of the experimental programme, have allowed us to confirm the elaborated hypothesis and achieve remarkable performances. Finally, we are convinced that our study will be useful to the vast majority of martial arts specialists who approach the Duo Show system and not only, thus leading to the increase of sports performance and diversification of training methods.

Comparative study of competition anxiety stress and depression among judo players and other combat games players

Comparative study of competition anxiety stress and depression among judo players and other combat games players

Autonomous air combat maneuver decision using Bayesian inference and moving horizon optimization

To reach a higher level of autonomy for unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) in air combat games, this paper builds an autonomous maneuver decision system. In this system, the air combat game is regarded as a Markov process, so that the air combat situation can be effectively calculated via Bayesian inference theory. According to the situation assessment result, adaptively adjusts the weights of maneuver decision factors, which makes the objective function more reasonable and ensures the superiority situation for UCAV. As the air combat game is characterized by highly dynamic and a significant amount of uncertainty, to enhance the robustness and effectiveness of maneuver decision results, fuzzy logic is used to build the functions of four maneuver decision factors. Accuracy prediction of opponent aircraft is also essential to ensure making a good decision; therefore, a prediction model of opponent aircraft is designed based on the elementary maneuver method. Finally, the moving horizon optimization strategy is used to effectively model the whole air combat maneuver decision process. Various simulations are performed on typical scenario test and close-in dogfight, the results sufficiently demonstrate the superiority of the designed maneuver decision method.

Physiological Responses and Time-Motion Analysis of Small Combat Games in Kickboxing: Impact of Ring Size and Number of Within-Round Sparring Partners.

Ouergui, I, Houcine, N, Marzouki, H, Davis, P, Franchini, E, Gmada, N, and Bouhlel, E. Physiological responses and time-motion analysis of small combat games in kickboxing: impact of ring size and number of within-round sparring partners. J Strength Cond Res 31(7): 1840-1846, 2017-The study aimed to investigate the physiological responses and time-structure of small combat games (SCGs) in kickboxing according to ring sizes and number of sparring partners. Twenty athletes from regional (n = 13) and national levels (n = 7) participated in the study (mean ± SD, age: 20.3 ± 0.9 years; height: 177 ± 4.8 cm; body mass: 71.8 ± 10.5 kg). Blood lactate concentration [La] was measured before and after bouts, and the delta (Δ) was determined. Heart rate (HR) was measured throughout and HR and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were also measured postbout. The HRpre, HRmean, and percentage of peak HR (%HRpeak) were used for analysis. The HRpeak was determined during a cycle ergometer graded exercise test. Each athlete was confronted by 1 (1 vs. 1; no sparring partner change), 2 (1 vs. 2) and 4 opponents (1 vs. 4) within-round (sparring partner change every 1 minute or 30 seconds, respectively) in different ring sizes (i.e., 2×2 m, 4×4 m, and 6×6 m). All combats were recorded and analyzed to determine the duration of different activity phases (high-intensity activities [HIA], low-intensity actions [LIA], and referee pause [P]). Results showed that values for HRpre and HRmean when opposed by a single individual (1 vs. 1) were lower than other conditions (all p < 0.001). Moreover, %HRpeak values in 1 vs. 1 were lower than in other conditions and higher in 4 × 4 m compared with other sizes. [La]pre, post, and the Δ did not differ among all conditions (p > 0.05). The RPE scores were lower in 1 vs. 1 compared with other conditions (p < 0.001), with no ring sizes effect (p > 0.05). For time-motion variables, HIA values were lower in 1 vs. 1 than in the 2 other conditions and was longer in 2 × 2 m compared with 4 × 4 m and 6 × 6 m, whereas LIA values were higher in 1 vs. 1 and lower in the 2 × 2 m. In conclusion, SCGs seem to be a good form of exercise for sufficient cardiovascular conditioning specific to kickboxing activity in comparison with data from previous studies.

You Are Not Expected to Survive: Affective Friction in the Combat Shooter Game &lt;em&gt;Battlefield 1&lt;/em&gt;

You Are Not Expected to Survive: Affective Friction in the Combat Shooter Game &lt;em&gt;Battlefield 1&lt;/em&gt;

State-of-the-Art and Open Challenges in RTS Game-AI and Starcraft

This paper presents a review of artificial intelligence for different approaches used in real-time strategy games. Real-time strategy (RTS) based games are quick combat games in which the objective is to dominate and destroy the opposing enemy such as Rome-total war, Starcraft, the age of empires, and command & conquer, etc. In such games, each player needs to utilize resources efficiently, which includes managing different types of soldiers, units, equipment’s, economic status, positions and the uncertainty during the combat in real time. Now the best human players face difficulty in defeating the best RTS games due to the recent success and advancement of deep mind technologies. In this paper, we explain state-of-the-art and challenges in artificial intelligence (AI) for RTS games and Starcraft, describing problems and issues carried out by RTS based games with some solutions that are addressed to them. Finally, we conclude by emphasizing on game ‘CIG & AIIDE’ competitions along with open research problems and questions in the context of RTS Game-AI, where some of the problems and challenges are mostly considered improved and solved but yet some are open for further research.

Militarism and opposition in the living room: the case of military videogames

This article explores the importance of videogames and their associated promotional media for both militarism and the resulting opposition. It focuses on the games Medal of Honor and Medal of Honor Warfighter – two mainstream, commercially successful military combat games which purport to offer an ‘authentic’ experience of post 9/11 military action to the player – to develop a framework to explore the role of videogames in this area. First, in terms of the military industrial and military entertainment complex, it shows the close association between the game developers and the military, with the military providing consultancy services, access to military hardware and openly celebrating their mutual associations. Second, these associations take on an important spatial dimension with the developers and weapons makers producing promotional materials which literally show both parties ‘enjoying one another’s company’ in the same physical space; games also ‘transport the player’ into the virtual battlefield and allow them to embody the soldier. Finally, gendered militarism is shown in the gameplay and narratives within these games, alongside their associated promotional materials, all of which place significant emphasis on the links between militaristic values and masculinity. In both games, the celebration of militarism was highly controversial, prompting heated debate and active opposition – albeit varying in the two cases – from the military, politicians and players on the appropriateness of using videogames for militaristic entertainment. This suggests that there are limits to society’s acquiescence in militarism and a continuing capacity to critique militaristic popular culture.

Who Are the Enemies? The Visual Framing of Enemies in Digital Games

Digital games are among the most popular forms of entertainment media. Despite their ubiquity, the fields of political science, International Relations, and political communication have generally overlooked the study of digital games. We take up this void by examining the international enemies depicted in combat games – specifically, first-person shooter (FPS) games – which can speak to the process in the construction of international threats in society. Our review of framing the enemy gleans perspectives from multiple disciplines including International Relations, political communication, and digital gaming. Our empirical analysis traces the evolution of images in digital games from 2001 to 2013 to reveal the identity of the enemies and protagonists and to examine the context of the game – including the setting where each game takes place. We find that Russians are a popular form of enemy in FPS games even after considering terrorists as a broad category. Our review of the literature and our empirical analysis together present a foundation for the future study of digital games as a process of framing of enemies and transmission of threats.

Numerical Solution of Orbital Combat Games Involving Missiles and Spacecraft

This research addresses the problem of the optimal interception of an optimally evasive orbital target by a pursuing spacecraft or missile. The time for interception is to be minimized by the pursuing space vehicle and maximized by the evading target. This problem is modeled as a two-sided optimization problem, i.e. as a two-player zero-sum differential game. The work incorporates a recently developed method, termed “semi-direct collocation with nonlinear programming”, for the numerical solution of dynamic games. The method is based on the formal conversion of the two-sided optimization problem into a single-objective one, by employing the analytical necessary conditions for optimality related to one of the two players. An approximate, first attempt solution for the method is provided through the use of a genetic algorithm in a “preprocessing” phase. Three qualitatively different cases are considered. In the first example the pursuer and the evader are represented by two spacecraft orbiting the Earth in two distinct orbits. The second and the third case involve two missiles, and a missile that pursues an orbiting spacecraft, respectively. The numerical results achieved in this work testify to the robustness and effectiveness of the method also in solving large, complex, three-dimensional problems.

Bicriterion differential games with qualitative outcomes

Combat games are studied as bicriterion differential games with qualitative outcomes determined by threshold values on the criterion functions. Survival and capture strategies of the players are defined using the notion of security levels. Closest approach survival strategies (CASS) and minimum risk capture strategies (MRCS) are important strategies for the players identified as solutions to four optimization problems involving security levels. These are used, in combination with the preference orderings of the qualitative outcomes by the players, to delineate the win regions and the secured draw and mutual kill regions for the players. It is shown that the secured draw regions and the secured mutual kill regions for the two players are not necessarily the same. Simple illustrative examples are given.

On the approximate solution of complex combat games

We view air-to-air combat as a two-target differential game between armed opponents. Although it is presently beyond the state of the art to solve for the optimal controls for both of the opponents, we can constrain the game to searching for each initial condition for the guidance law for each opponent from the sets of those considered. This constraint changes evaluation of the game to that of a discrete game, which can be solved by enumeration. As an example, a one-on-one two-dimensional air-to-air combat game has been designed. The game includes both attack and evasion guidance laws for both aircraft. To decide which of the guidance laws to use, the quantized initial-condition space is flooded with four simulated fights for each initial condition, depicting the strategies for the two opponents: attack-attack, attack-evasion, evasion-attack, and evasionevasion, and the outcomes are recorded. For each initial condition, the minimax procedure from discrete games selects the best choice from the available strategies for both players. The results are feedback and outcome charts that can be used to turn one of the automatic opponents into an intelligent opponent against a human pilot.