Mark of the Ninja AI article published in Game AI Pro

Over a year ago, I submitted an article to a new AI book project by Steve Rabin (of AI Game Programming Wisdom).  That article was on the sensory/detection system we used in Mark of the Ninja, and the book has now finally been published!

Game AI Pro Cover

Game AI Pro: Collected Wisdom of Game AI Professionals

See Chapter 32. How to Catch a Ninja: NPC Awareness in a 2D Stealth Platformer. It was a lot of fun to write and an interesting experience getting the article ready for a print publication.

One thing the writing process really drove home for me was that I am (and I assume most people are) absolutely abysmal at remembering who did what and what ideas were whose on a long project. If it weren’t for Subversion logs setting me straight I probably would have taken credit for things I definitely didn’t write myself. I was quite meticulous about fact checking all of my statements after that, and I gave my coworkers the opportunity to review the article before final submission, so if they let something slip, well… they had their chance!

I’ve only had the opportunity so far to read a couple of the other articles which were in the same section as mine for review purposes, but there’s some really interesting stuff in there, and I’m sure far more in the rest of the book.  I’m looking forward to receiving my author’s complimentary copies to look through the rest of the articles, and also to show off to friends and family.