Ms Pac-Man versus ghost-team competition

Abstract

Ms. Pac-Man is a challenging and interesting game that is usually viewed form the perspective of the Ms. Pac-Man agent. The game is also provides an excellent environment for testing multi-agent strategies for controlling the team of ghosts, with the aim either of optimising the playability of the game, or simply to minimise the score obtained by the agent. It is this latter more measurable objective that provides the focus of this competition. For this purpose an efficient simulator of the game has been developed with simple software interfaces with which to connect your controllers. The screenshot below shows a game in progress on the simulator. You can enter an agent controller or a ghost-team controller (or even both). The aim of the Ms. Pac-Man agent is to score as many points as possible. The aim of the ghost team controller is to prevent this!