Intelligent controller for Ms. Pac-Man

Abstract

Ms. Pac-Man is a challenging real time game which provides a very good platform for Artificial Intelligence research. This project aims to develop an intelligent controller to control Ms Pac-Man to clear more stages in the game by JAVA program. According to a specific rule which is each level will finish after 3000 time steps and all remaining pills are awarded to Ms. Pac-Man, the most important issue of Ms. Pac- Man is to avoid capturing by the ghosts by finding a safe path in the game. A novel algorithm for path generating and testing is used. Several paths which are formed by vertices are generated randomly. Each path will be tested by comparing the shortest distance of the ghosts and Ms. Pac-Man in order to find a relative safe path. Our experimental results show that this method can prevent Ms. Pac-Man being trapped by ghosts. It can increase the chance for Ms. Pac-Man to finish the level after 3000 time steps.