Teaching game AI through Minecraft mods

One of the issues with teaching artificial intelligence (AI) for games is that many AI algorithms work in theory, but have production consequences in terms of speed or memory when actually used in a game. We report on the benefits and drawbacks of modifying or “modding” the commercial game Minecraft for a course on Game AI. This was done to give students the experience of dealing with a commercial game environment where they would have to worry about production consequences with their algorithms. The course was run as an upper level undergraduate elective during the fall of 2011 and included assignments on dynamic terrain generation, character behavior, and world events.