Nintendo Super Smash Bros. Melee: An "Untouchable" Agent
This addresses the challenge of developing robust AI for complex, real-time video games, though it is incremental as it focuses on a specific avoidance task in a single game.
The researchers tackled the problem of creating an AI agent that avoids being hit in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Melee by training it using internal memory states from emulated gameplay, resulting in an agent that avoided the toughest built-in AI for a full minute 74.6% of the time.
Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Melee fighting game can be emulated on modern hardware allowing us to inspect internal memory states, such as character positions. We created an AI that avoids being hit by training using these internal memory states and outputting controller button presses. After training on a month's worth of Melee matches, our best agent learned to avoid the toughest AI built into the game for a full minute 74.6% of the time.