Hyperstate space graphs for automated game analysis

Abstract

Automatically analysing games is an important challenge for automated game design, general game playing, and co-creative game design tools. However, understanding the nature of an unseen game is extremely difficult due to the lack of a priori design knowledge and heuristics. In this paper we formally define hyperstate space graphs, a compressed form of state space graphs which can be constructed without any prior design knowledge about a game. We show how hyperstate space graphs produce compact representations of games which closely relate to the heuristics designed by hand for search-based AI agents; we show how hyperstate space graphs also relate to modern ideas about game design; and we point towards future applications for hyperstates across game AI research.