Wonders of Seabed: Difficulty Evaluation of Management Games Using Neural Network - Technologies and Applications of Artificial Intelligence - page 165

game diculty level in battle games [4]. In [17], adaptive algorithms were devel-
oped to adapt to the playing performance of players to achieve diculty control.
The proposed algorithms were tested on a real-time driving game.
Some techniques are developed based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) to
achieve game balance. For example in [8], the powers of two teams are evaluated
based on PSO in a role-playing game. In [14], the neural network approach and
particle swarm optimization approach were compared. A case study of n-queens
problem using PSO was conducted in chess games [9]. Neural networks are also
employed in game evaluation. For example, neural network was employed in
video games [16], chess games [18] and rules based approach for the self-learning
evaluation [13].
3 System Architecture
In this section, we describe the system architecture of a management game, the
game rules and the implementation of the system.
We have developed a manageable management game called Wonders of Seabed
for studying the game diculty level. We build the game scene under the water.
There are four major parameters to control the development of the city: tax,
maintenance fee, celebration fee, and human resource fee. Players are required
to control these four parameters to achieve certain goals within a given amount
of time duration. We integrate our game with a neural network to evaluate the
game diculty level for a player. Our system is able to adjust the game diculty
level to meet the player's expectation. Our game features automatic generated
scenes so that a player can enjoy the flourish of his/her own city with only
some adjustment of income/outcome. Furthermore, our game would adjust the
diculty to higher level if advanced players want to have a challenging game. In
other words, heavy gamers may face a harsh environment while new gamers can
have a prosper city with little effort.
3.1 Wonders of Seabed: How to Play
In Wonders of Seabed, the city is divided into four major areas: a residential
area, a commercial area, agricultural area, and an administrative center. In each
area, there are parameters that the players need to control to improve the income
of each area. We hope players could learn how to manage a city by controlling
the parameters and gradually understand how to develop a city successfully in
alongrun.
To develop the city, players need to balance four key values every game month:
tax, maintenance fee, celebration fee and human resource fee. A game month is
30 seconds (i.e., half minute) in real world. We describe each of the key values.
Tax. The tax income is the total income of the government unit from the com-
mercial area, agriculture area and residential area. Tax is the main income in
this game. If players set the tax to be too high, 'economic recession' may hap-
pen. It means that the income from tax will be decreased because citizens do not