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Write for Game AI Pro 3!!! (deadline April 15th, 2016)

There is going to be a new Game AI Pro book and you can be a part of it! With the first two Game AI Pro books, Steve Rabin hatched a plan that was just crazy enough to work... I wanted to make an AI Wisdom book that would one day be FREE, yet have a professional book publisher perform their magic and produce a real physical book that will appear in bookstores, thus being a trophy and resume piece for each author.

Here's the bargain: Authors receive NO ROYALTIES (book royalties have always been very low and each author was lucky to get a $36 check every now and then). Well, no royalties is great for the book publisher, but what do the authors get in return?

Here's what I negotiated: After TWO YEARS, the entire book will be put on the web for FREE, FOREVER. Instead of reaching an audience of just 1500 to 3000 (the number of books typically printed), the articles will be available to be read, used, and referenced by 10,000 to 100,000 people over the next 10, 20, 50, 100 years. Articles in this new book will be extremely important and will have an impact for many, many years to come. YOU WANT TO BE A PART OF THIS BOOK!

Book publisher CRC Press and editor Steve Rabin are looking for game developers to share their wisdom in this brand new volume. Anything that an AI game programmer would typically deal with is fair game, including pathfinding, animation control, scripting, terrain analysis, learning, and various decision-making techniques. Selected authors will have several months to write and receive 3 free books. Proposals for 5-20 page articles are now being accepted until April 1st.


Submitting a Proposal - Follow these steps:

  1. Prove that you can follow directions by including each of the following. Experience shows that people who include all items are more reliable and dependable, and thus are more likely to be chosen to write for the book.
  2. E-mail your proposal to steve.rabin@gmail.com
  3. Make the subject of the e-mail your proposed article title.
  4. Write at least two detailed paragraphs explaining your topic. More details = better chance of acceptance. We like overachievers.
  5. Was the technique used in a game? Which game? Released or unreleased?
  6. Will you include a demo or source code with your article? (this will increase your chances of being chosen)
  7. Estimate the number of pages. We're looking for 5-20 pages per article (figures take 1/2 page each).
  8. For each author, describe previous writing experience.
  9. For each author, describe experience within the game industry and/or academic degrees.
  10. For each author, include a contact email address.
  11. Submit only one proposal per e-mail.

    Note: Please submit several different proposals to increase your chances of being chosen.


Schedule

  • April 15th: Deadline for Proposals
  • April 22nd: Proposals chosen
  • April 22nd - June 10th: Authors write articles / demos
  • June 10th - June 17th: Peer review
  • June 17th - July 15th: Editing by section editors, revisions
  • July 15th - August 1st: Final editing by main editor, revisions
  • August 1st: Drop dead everything is in the hands of the publisher or we miss the publication date
  • March 2017 (GDC): Book is published


Ideas for Proposals

  1. Here is the breakdown of articles we'd like to see: (30%) Foundational articles for best practices on a particular subject, (60%) New innovative techniques proven in shipped games, and (10%) Forward looking techniques that might not have been tested in shipped games.
  2. First, look at articles in Game AI Pro, Game AI Pro 2, and past AI Wisdom books: Game AI Pro, AI Wisdom, AI Wisdom 2, AI Wisdom 3, AI Wisdom 4.
  3. You can follow-up or combine previous Game AI Pro / AI Wisdom articles, but it must be up-to-date and have some new information.
  4. Think about what AI systems you've developed that you were proud of. Are there any insights or algorithms that could help others?
  5. Did you learn the hard way how to correctly architect an AI for a particular genre (like football, RTS, or racing)? Could you explain a framework that worked well?
  6. Did you figure out a simple system or algorithm that appeared to have much more intelligence than it actually had?
  7. Do you have a horror story or lessons learned to share, like Mark Brockington's article "How Not to Write a Scripting Language"?
  8. Can you describe academic research that can be applied to practical game development?
  9. Do you have a small code base that you'd like to share?
  10. Do you have any wisdom gleaned from your last project that you'd like to share?
  11. Can you analyze and compare methods for a specific technique (like the article "The Ultimate Guide to FSMs in Games" in AI Wisdom 2)?
  12. Do you have a collection of wisdom for a particular aspect of AI game programming (like the article "Strategies for Optimizing AI" in GPG2)?
  13. Have you found a really good use for less used game AI techniques like Neural Networks or Genetic Algorithms?
  14. Have you used a common AI technique in an unconventional way?

Sections we are considering for the book:

  1. General Wisdom
  2. Architecture
  3. Movement and Pathfinding
  4. Strategy and Tactics
  5. Agent Awareness and Knowledge Representation
  6. Terrain Analysis
  7. Odds and Ends


Compensation for Articles

  • Authors will receive 3 free books.
  • In exchange for no royalties, after 2 years the entire book will be put on the web for free. In addition, after 2 years each author can post their chapter on their personal website and/or their company's website (however the copyright is maintained by the publisher and the article can't be resold or republished).
  • A good feeling and bragging rights when you see your work in a local bookstore, like Barnes and Noble, and used/referenced by game developers for years to come.