A Video Game Based on Elementary Differential Equations

Marco Giacinti, Francesca Mariani, Maria Cristina Recchioni, Francesco Zirilli

CERI-Centro di Ricerca Previsione Prevenzione e Controllo dei Rischi Geologici, Universitμa di Roma “La Sapienza”, Valmontone, Italy.
Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali “D. Serrani”, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy.

DOI: 10.4236/ica.2013.43030                

Abstract

In this paper a prey-predator video game is presented. In the video game two predators chase a prey that tries to avoid the capture by the predators and to reach a location in space (i.e. its “home”). The prey is animated by a human player (using a joypad), the predators are automated players whose behaviour is decided by the video game engine. The purpose of the video game is to show how to use mathematical models to build a simple prey-predator dynamics representing a physical system where the movements of the game actors satisfy Newton’s dynamical principle and the behaviour of the automated players simulates a simple form of intelligence. The game is based on a simple set of ordinary differential equations. These differential equations are used in classical mechanics to describe the dynamics of a set of point masses subject to a force chosen by the human player, elastic forces and friction forces (i.e. viscous damping). The software that implements the video game is written in C++ and Delphi. The video game can be downloaded from:

http://www.ceri.uniroma1.it/ceri/zirilli/w9

Keywords

Video Game; Differential Games; Mechanical Dynamical System

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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