Glossary ...........................

Glossary.................................

T

his section includes brief definitions of a number of the terms referred to in this
book, and should be of particular use to readers less familiar with the jargon of
the computer and video game industry. Some of the definitions veer close to talk-
ing about programming, and in these cases I provide only enough information to give
the reader a general idea of what the term means. Those looking for more complete def-
initions are advised to pick up a book about computer game development from a
programming standpoint, of which there are many.

A: The most popular pathfinding algorithm used by computer games, which finds
short and effective paths consistently and quickly, though it is far from perfect. The
basis of the A algorithm is to search for a path by expanding valid nodes that are closest
to the target location first in order to try to find the shortest path possible without
searching too extensively. Of course, this can be found described in more detail in
almost any book about programming games.See alsoPathfinding.

Agent: SeeAI Agent.

AI: SeeArtificial Intelligence.

AI Agent: The entity that the artificial intelligence controls in a game; the agent of
its actions. In a computer game, the AI agents include the monsters the player fights
and the NPCs to which he talks. Many people make the mistake of referring to those
creatures themselves as “AIs,” but this has always bothered me. Just as you would not
say that a person walking down the street is an “intelligence,” you should not refer to
the agents in a game as the “AIs.” See Chapter 9, “Artificial Intelligence.”

Algorithm: In the land of game development this refers to a usually short piece of
code designed to solve a particular problem, typically mathematical in nature. For
instance, you might have an algorithm that determines whether one character in a 3D
environment can see another one or not. Or you could say that the code that finds a
walkable path from the first character to the second one is an algorithm. Or, in a game
likeSimCity, algorithms are used to calculate the population density in a given location
based on the choices the player has made in building the city.

A-Life: SeeArtificial Life.

Alpha: Customarily describes a game that is not yet close to being complete but is
playable all the way through. At this point, the design and content is largely done, and
bug-fixing, refining, and balancing are all that remain to be done on the title. This is
often used by publishers to define the state of a project they have in development and is
typically followed by the Beta state. Other developers may define Alpha differently,
such as using it to mean any game that is in a playable state.See alsoBetaandRelease
Candidate.

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