PALAIS : A 3 D Simulation Environment for Artificial Intelligence in Games

In this paper we present PALAIS — a virtual simulation environment for Artificial Intelligence (AI) in games. The environment provides functionality for prototyping, testing, visualisation and evaluation of game AI. It allows definition and execution of arbitrary, three-dimensional game scenes and behaviors. Additionally, PALAIS incorporates a plugin system that supports swift integration of custom AI algorithms. As a result, PALAIS effectively reduces the effort necessary to research, develop, prototype and showcase behaviors used for non-player characters in games. Finally, we demonstrate the power of the provided plugin system by exemplarily extending the functionality of PALAIS with an external module. PALAIS is available at http://www.palais.io.