Optimizing Game Strategies: A Computational Approach to Multi-Player Dynamics

Computer-game development is immensely popular with undergraduate computer-science and computer-engineering students. More importantly, the design and development of computer-games is an excellent pedagogical opportunity: developing games integrates a great number of the subjects students learn throughout their undergraduate experience. This integration of topics, coupled with student driven motivation to learn, is an important step for students allowing them to utilize tools from programming and graphics to calculus and physics; from data structures and algorithms to computer hardware to name just a few subjects. From a teaching perspective, computer-game development is great fun to teach as the students are highly motivated and the subject matter, while very challenging, is fun.