Human-like Super Mario Play using Artificial Potential Fields

Abstract: Artifi cial potential fi elds is a technique that use attractive and repelling forces to control e.g. robots, or non player characters in games. We show how this technique may be used in a controller for Super Mario in a way create a human-like playing style. By combining fi elds of progression, opponent avoidance and rewards, we get a controller that tries to collect the rewards and avoid the opponents at the same time as it is progressing towards the goal of the level. We use human test persons to improve the controller further by letting them make pair-wise comparisons with human play recordings, and use the feed-back to calibrate the bot for human-like play.