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GA Tech Researchers Train Computer To Create New "Mario Brothers" Levels

Posted by timothy on from the your-job-is-not-safe-level-designers dept.

An anonymous reader writes with a Georgia Institute of Technology report that researchers there have created a computing system that views gameplay video from streaming services like YouTube or Twitch, analyzes the footage and then is able to create original new sections of a game. The team tested their discovery, the first of its kind, with the original Super Mario Brothers, a well-known two-dimensional platformer game that will allow the new automatic-level designer to replicate results across similar games. Rather than the playable character himself, the Georgia Tech system focuses instead on the in-game terrain. "For example, pipes in the Mario games tend to stick out of the ground, so the system learns this and prevents any pipes from being flush with grassy surfaces. It also prevents "breaks" by using spatial analysis – e.g. no impossibly long jumps for the hero."

10 of 27 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Grammar check by ArylAkamov · · Score: 1

    Reminds me of David Cope and EMI

    http://www.radiolab.org/story/...

    "David Cope, the composer and professor at UC Santa Cruz, who cured his artist’s block by writing a computer program to do the dirtywork for him. His program, named EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence), deconstructs the works of great composers, finding patterns within the voice leading of their compositions, and then creates brand new compositions based on the patterns she finds."

  2. Duh by behrooz0az · · Score: 2

    Red Alert 2 had that in 1999. Even smarter than that IMO.

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    1. Re:Duh by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 1

      Diablo had procedurally generated levels back in 1997. I'm sure other games came before it. This is a bit more interesting because the procedure was learned, not explicitly programmed.

  3. Re:This is trivial by narcc · · Score: 2

    Because Slashdot likes clicks. Think about the kinds of posts we'll see:

    1) The singularity nuts hailing this as a sign that the end is near, and we'll all be living in Kurzweil's video game afterlife by Thurday.
    2) Anyone who knows anything about the subject telling us this isn't news.
    3) The attention seekers telling us how they did exactly this when they were in high school/college/basement.
    4) The indignant, telling us how this is exactly like [some other thing] (to be followed by the Singularity nuts telling them that it's like totally different)
    5) Philosophical musing of varying quality about the ramifications or lack thereof
    6) Hopeful game designers posting whatever they can remember from last weeks episode of 'Extra Credits'
    7) Unhelpful lists telling us what kind of posts we'll expect to see here.
     
    ... Oh ...

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    Required reading for internet skeptics
  4. Tested on Super Mario? by CurryCamel · · Score: 1

    The level generator was tested with the original Super Mario? Has it been open sourced?

    Or do we finally have an explanation for what sort of twisty brain wrote the "cat mario"/syobon levels?

  5. Re:So it's a level generator? by narcc · · Score: 1

    Not really. This is closer to using Markov chains to make music. This is decidedly nothing new or interesting.

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    Required reading for internet skeptics
  6. GA Tech can go fuck themselves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This is the crowed who are on a massive ping sweep across the entire IPv4 address space, who refuse to blacklist addresses, and when you complain block you at their firewall from sending in complaints, but still manage to fuck about with your systems.

    Try checking for these IP addresses:
    128.61.240.31
    130.207.203.2
    143.215.130.15
    143.215.130.239

    1. Re:GA Tech can go fuck themselves by gweilo8888 · · Score: 1

      My goodness, they've sent you pings? How appalling! What next, email??

    2. Re:GA Tech can go fuck themselves by gweilo8888 · · Score: 1

      This. Block or ignore the pings and move on. If your network monitoring freaks out over a small handful of pings from a small handful of known IP addresses and you can't figure out how to address them, you probably shouldn't be in charge of it anyway. (And I say this as somebody who was for quite a few years a network engineer for what, at the time, was a top 25 company on the Fortune 500. After being promoted a few times I chose to move on to a different, more challenging career, incidentally. The long shift hours take it out of you, and don't lend themselves to family life.)

  7. Re:This is trivial by DiEx-15 · · Score: 1

    You forgot to play the SMB music while we read this post.