Computer learns to play classic NES games on its own

At 30-plus years old, are classic Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) games now ripe for much more powerful modern-day computers to play and conquer?

 

Well, yes and no, according to computer science researcher Tom Murphy VII, who developed a program called Playfun that can play NES games by itself.

 

"The technique works great on somegames, getting farther into the game than the human's inputs did, and produces novel gameplay (for example, bug exploitation and super-human daredevil timing). On other games, it is garbage, but on a scale of recycling symbol 1 to recycling symbol 7, it is at least hilarious garbage," Murphy said in a 22-page paper where he detailed his technique for enabling a computer play Super Mario Bros. and other NES games.

 

Murphy said his technique would have a computer "player" figure out how to play the game not by analyzing video and sound but by looking at certain things that increase during gameplay, such as the score and level number.

 

A separate article on Geek.com summed up how the computer program dubbed Playfun would play the NES games: "Playfun isn’t looking at the screen, it’s just trying to win with math. It can calculate ahead and anticipate actions based on the data it has."

 

Murphy said the automated playing of Mario is fun to watch, with his computer program even exploiting bugs in the game.

 

"It's even funny when it fails, watching Mario struggling with obstacles like tiny pits, or making a heroic move followed by a trivial mistake," he said.

 

But when Murphy applied Playfun on other NES games such as Hudson's Adventure Island, Pac-Man, Karate Kid, and Bubble Bobble, the results were varied.

 

He said future work may include having Playfun teach itself to play various games as it goes along.

 

"(It) might be possible for Playfun to teach itself, by starting with no objective functions and playing randomly

to see what bytes it can make go up, then (setting) lexicographic orderings to the memories and repeating," he said.

 

But he said the main obstacle for now involves the beginnings of games, which include RAM initialization, title screens, and menus. — TJD, GMA News