Challenging fields like real-time videogames constitute an ideal, reproducible and controllable ground for researching and experimenting on the new developments of incremental reasoners for Answer Set Programming (ASP). On the other hand, declarative methods show potential in cutting down development costs in commercial videogames: nonetheless, fulfilling the strict time requirements of this type of stream reasoning-like application is still an unsurpassed obstacle. Incremental reasoning techniques might help in overcoming this latter. In this work we report about the integration of an incremental ASP engine in a framework conceived for adding declarative decision-making modules in the typical videogame development workflow. Namely, the two systems are Incremental-DLV2 , a recently introduced multi-shot incremental solver based on the ASP semantics, and ThinkEngine, a tool for developing declarative modules working in the context of the Unity game engine. After describing the features of both systems, we give an example showing how to program a declarative-based videogame character. We discuss how we adapted the architecture of ThinkEngine for accommodating incremental reasoning, and report about experiments showing the impact in performance after the introduction of Incremental-DLV2 .
Integrating ASP-Based Incremental Reasoning in the Videogame Development Workflow (Application Paper)
Angilica D.
;Ianni G.
;Pacenza F.
;Zangari J.
2023-01-01
Abstract
Challenging fields like real-time videogames constitute an ideal, reproducible and controllable ground for researching and experimenting on the new developments of incremental reasoners for Answer Set Programming (ASP). On the other hand, declarative methods show potential in cutting down development costs in commercial videogames: nonetheless, fulfilling the strict time requirements of this type of stream reasoning-like application is still an unsurpassed obstacle. Incremental reasoning techniques might help in overcoming this latter. In this work we report about the integration of an incremental ASP engine in a framework conceived for adding declarative decision-making modules in the typical videogame development workflow. Namely, the two systems are Incremental-DLV2 , a recently introduced multi-shot incremental solver based on the ASP semantics, and ThinkEngine, a tool for developing declarative modules working in the context of the Unity game engine. After describing the features of both systems, we give an example showing how to program a declarative-based videogame character. We discuss how we adapted the architecture of ThinkEngine for accommodating incremental reasoning, and report about experiments showing the impact in performance after the introduction of Incremental-DLV2 .I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.