# EvolvingBehavior: Towards Co-Creative Evolution of Behavior Trees for Game NPCs

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.01020 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.01020/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 10 of its 56 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Sep 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [Illuminating search spaces by mapping elites](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1504.04909/) (2015)
- [The Surprising Creativity of Digital Evolution: A Collection of Anecdotes from the Evolutionary Computation and Artificial Life Research Communities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.03453/) (2018)
- [A Survey of Behavior Trees in Robotics and AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.05842/) (2020)
- [Talakat: Bullet Hell Generation through Constrained Map-Elites](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.04718/) (2018)
- [Neuroevolution in Games: State of the Art and Open Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1410.7326/) (2014)
- [Learning of Behavior Trees for Autonomous Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1504.05811/) (2015)
- [Interactive Constrained MAP-Elites: Analysis and Evaluation of the Expressiveness of the Feature Dimensions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.03377/) (2020)
- [Learning Behavior Trees with Genetic Programming in Unpredictable Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.03252/) (2020)
- [Design-Driven Requirements for Computationally Co-Creative Game AI Design Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.13738/) (2021)
- [Automatic difficulty management and testing in games using a framework based on behavior trees and genetic algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.04368/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [A Study on Training and Developing Large Language Models for Behavior Tree Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.08089/) (2024)
- [PANGeA: Procedural Artificial Narrative using Generative AI for Turn-Based Video Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.19721/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

To assist game developers in crafting game NPCs, we present EvolvingBehavior, a novel tool for genetic programming to evolve behavior trees in Unreal Engine 4. In an initial evaluation, we compare evolved behavior to hand-crafted trees designed by our researchers, and to randomly-grown trees, in a 3D survival game. We find that EvolvingBehavior is capable of producing behavior approaching the designer's goals in this context. Finally, we discuss implications and future avenues of exploration for co-creative game AI design tools, as well as challenges and difficulties in behavior tree evolution.