Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
rules of the game to determine which of the advisors was appropriate for
that game and the weights for each of them.
Pell's interest lay mainly in creating a program that could analyse
games from within a particular class, and he later wrote a program called
METAGAMER which played a class of games that includes Chess, Chi-
nese Chess, Shogi (Japanese Chess), and Checkers.
The strategic analysis performed by the program relates a set of
general knowledge sources to the details of the particular game.
Among other properties, this analysis determines the relative value
of the different pieces in a given game. Although METAGAMER
does not learn from experience, the values resulting from its analysis
are qualitatively similar to values used by experts on known games,
and are sufficient to produce competitive performance the first time
the program actually plays each game it is given. This appears to be
the first program to have derived useful piece values directly from
analysis of the rules of different games. [4]
Zillions of Games
Pell's approach was more restrictive than de Grey's original idea but,
by focussing the program on games of a particular class, Pell made the
Metagame concept ideal as the basis for a commercially available multi-
games system, called Zillions of Games, developed by Jeff Mallett and
Mark Loeffler. With this product, which comes with several hundred
games already available, users can create their own board games or spec-
ify the rules of existing board games. Within the Zillions system a game
is completely defined by a “rules” file, along with some image files for
drawing the pieces and the board, and sound files for providing sound
effects and music. The rules file contains instructions for the program on
how to play the game, written in a specially designed language called ZRF
(Zillions Rules Files). Although this means that users who wish to add
their own games must first go through something of a learning curve, the
Zillions product allows users considerable flexibility when defining their
own games. The user can define the board layout; specify how the pieces
are arranged at the start of the game; specify what moves are possible by
each type of piece; create various topologies by linking various positions
and directions (for example, the board can be made cylindrical); create
gaps in the game board; specify special zones of the board where special
rules apply; specify the winning conditions; etc. Once the rules of the
game have been defined, the Zillions software analyses these rules and
