Project Sarica

So I've finally gotten around to making the artificial intelligence programs I've been talking about for however long it's been. I spent about a good two hours last night working on a simple neural network setup, and evolution algorithm to allow it to learn. I was able to finish them both in only 2 classes, each with less then 100 lines. Knowing that a lot of the processes here are going to be quite taxing, I challenged myself to make them run as memory friendly, and CPU friendly as possible. To achieve this, I make the entire network run solely in arrays. Using only 4 (really long) arrays, more specifically.

Wanting to stress test it, I make a 100 x 100 neuron brain, (plus 99 bias neurons), and ran it 1000 times to find the average time for a single step. I was quite surprised that the entire network, consisting off 10,099 neurons, and 999,900 connections, completed a single step in only a mere 2.7 ms. That's insane. I'm quite happy.

In addition to only using arrays to store all of the neutral network data, I didn't use and taxing functions such as Sigmoid. I used a base 4 polynomial, which was set by the evolutionary algorithm to whatever function is wanted. This means that all of the math used in the network was simply adding and multiplication. Because of the MAD rule in computing, (MAD basically means that multiplying then adding can be preformed in a single CPU cycle.) this was almost no problem at all for the computer. This is well more then enough neurons to complete most tasks that a neural network would need.

In fact, the network could be expanded on even more, if needed. The largest I was able to do before running into memory issues was 300 x 300. At this point, I was already using all of the virtual memory Java had given to me by default. I could've easily allocated more memory, but it was unnecessary. At 300 x 300 neurons, the network completed a single step in about 195\ms.

If you want to see the code for this class, see this link. (Note: By the time you read this, the code may have been expanded on, so it may have a lot more features, be faster, or whatever else I do to it.)

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Now, to start out with this project, I need to think of an environment. I was originally going to make a hunt and gather type world, but that wouldn't really put must focus on the types of learning I've really been wanting to dive into. As of now, I'm stumped as for which type of world to make for it.

Can't Seem to Finish a Game?

If you're an indie game developer, especially a new one, chances are you're having trouble finishing a game. You have lots of ideas, and plenty of content, yet, you just can't seem to stay focused long enough to finish. Or the game grows to big, too quickly, and becomes very overwhelming. Well, if this is the case, then here's a neat little trick you can do to help, a little.

All you have to do is "charge" yourself for work. Force yourself to give up a dollar or so for each feature you add to the game. Put it all into a jar, which you cannot collect from until the game is finished. No matter how big or small a feature is, you must pay for it. Some features that take longer to implement, cost more, while quick changes cost less. If you have a friend, have them hold onto it to stop you from losing will power and giving up, too soon.

How does that help? Like this.

1. This helps slow down the rate of small useless features, and forces you to focus more on the important ones.
2. By investing so much money, especially in larger games, you cause yourself to be more inclined to put your money to use, and feel more rewarded when a feature is finished, and works well.
3. When the game is done, you get everything in the pot. Which can be quite a bit if the game took a long time to finish. A nice little reward to look forward to when you call the game done.
4. When you get into making larger and larger games, paying others for features will start to become a common thing. This gets you used to it, early on.
5. You get a better feel for how time is important, and wasting time on useless features, can waste a lot of money.
6. You'll start to plan out features ahead of time, to judge their importance and difficulty to implement. This is critical for most games to be successful.

So all-in-all, this may or may not help you. But, it's worth a shot.

Also, don't cheat. Charge feature fairly, and don't sneak money from your jar. You'll only be cheating yourself, and not helping anything.

If you can get a friend to help, do so. Make them hold onto the cash, and if possible, even set the prices. This will help keep you in check.