Artificial Intelligence for a Personalized Difficulty
in Video Games
Joan Patricio Salas Rondón
Computer Science
Universidad Católica San Pablo
Email: joan.salas@ucsp.edu.pe
Abstract—This paper explores the intersection between Ar-
tificial Intelligence (AI) and video games, with its main focus
being the development of algorithms that are able to adapt
to the player’s needs and proficiency. It researches proposals
made with the goal of enhancing enjoyment and especially
avoiding frustration and boredom when playing a video game.
The document begins with an overview and summary of the
relationship between video games and AI development over the
years. It emphasizes the need for a adaptable difficulty setting to
cater to individual player needs. The survey then explores various
algorithms that have been developed and proposed to create a
sense of dynamic difficulty. It lists proposals such as Dynamic
Scripting and Evolutionary Learning Algorithms explaining the
upsides and downsides of each proposals while also listing exam-
ples where these techniques have been effectively implemented.
The document concludes by emphasizing the importance of AI
in improving quality and entertainment value of video games.
Index Terms—Artificial intelligence, Video Games, Dynamic
Difficulty, Enjoyment, Frustration, Proficiency, Quality and En-
tertainment, Algorithms
I. I NTRODUCTION
The quality of video games is often marked by the entertain-
ment they give to the public [1]. A video game can not be too
easy since players will not have a sense of satisfaction when
beating the game. Furthermore, it must not be too difficult
because the user will be less entertained and more frustrated
when playing. This is where artificial intelligence and dynamic
difficulty come into place to help the developers and players
develop a fair and comfortable way of experiencing the video
game.
Video games and AI are two topics that are very closely
related since the invention of the first game. The use of
AI for the development of enemies and world generation
has expanded over the years, and these AIs have also been
enhanced. For example, it is not accurate to say that the AI
of 1993’s DOOM is similar to the one of 2016’s DOOM even
though they are the same game conceptually because it is
simply not true.
However, often these AIs are static and do not accommodate
to the preferred difficulty of the player. This survey aims to
research and list ways of adaptation to the proficiency of the
player and thus not harming their enjoyment of the video game
nor their opinion about it.
The document will do a brief explanation of the develop-
ment of artificial intelligence as well as video games, both in
general terms. It will focus on particular ways and algorithms
that many authors and developers have developed to create a
sense of dynamic difficulty.
II. R ELATED W ORKS
A. Challenges in the implementation of AI
Perez-Liebana and his team [2] pose the difficulty of an
AI that is capable of playing and showing competitiveness
in any video game regardless of the genre and without
prior knowledge about it. The paper introduces and describes
the General Video Game AI (GVGAI) framework which is
used by different AI development competitions. The GVGAI
provides and interface for AI creation where the agent has
to emit responses in less than 40 milliseconds. Since the
characteristics of the game are not provided to the agent, it
has to ”discover” the game mechanics during execution. Some
challenges the paper describes are the implementation of the
AI in multiplayer video games such as cooperation between
two different AIs and the possibility of creating the AI with
procedurally generated levels.
Perez-Liebana notes that General Video Game AI can be
seen as an approximation of General Artificial Intelligence, as
it requires algorithms that can adapt to new and unfamiliar
environments without relying on game-specific heuristics. He
describes the competition as a way to encourage researchers
to develop more general and robust game-playing algorithms,
and notes that the competition has received multiple entries
with very different approaches. No one particular algorithm
dominates the rest, and it seems that selecting one or another
algorithm in sequence (as a sort of Hyper-Heuristic) improves
the results obtained.
Perez-Liebana also discusses some of the key challenges in
developing General Video Game AI, such as dealing with un-
certainty and incomplete information, handling diverse game
mechanics and objectives, and scaling up to larger and more
complex games. He describes some of the techniques that have
been used to address these challenges, such as Monte Carlo
Tree Search, Evolutionary Algorithms, Neural Networks, and
Reinforcement Learning.
Finally, the authors outline some potential applications of
General Video Game AI beyond gaming. They suggest that
this technology could be used for testing and evaluating other
AI systems in a more diverse range of environments than
is currently possible. It could also be used for educational
purposes or for developing more general-purpose robots or au-
tonomous agents. Overall, the conclusion of this investigation
is that General Video Game AI presents exciting opportunities
for advancing both game AI research and artificial intelligence
more broadly.
B. Dynamic Scripting
Spronck [3] introduces a revolutionary algorithm for the
development of AIs, this algorithm called Dynamic Scripting
focuses on finding the most effective strategy that the AI
with help of different factors such as the win rate or the net
effectiveness based on statistics of the match. Some problems
that this implementation has is that the AI can be easily
manipulated since the data the AI uses to decide whether to
take one action or another is provided by the player.
In this study, the experiments conducted involved adaptive
agents generated by the algorithm playing in opposition to
a collection of strategies designed manually in a simulated
video-game environment. After experimenting, the results
showed that dynamic scripting was capable of outshine the
manually designed tactics in terms of performance and dif-
ficulty. This paired with the fact that ways of scaling the
difficulty level to that of a human player depending on their
proficiency are being researched make dynamic scripting a
very innovative technique.
The authors also discuss how dynamic scripting can gener-
ate diverse and unpredictable behaviors in game AI, making
gameplay more engaging and challenging for players. They
highlight its applications in various types of games such as
RPGs, Real Time Strategy (RTS) games, First Person Shooter
(FPS) games, and sports simulations. Dynamic scripting can
be used to generate quests or side missions that adapt based
on player choices and actions, create more intelligent and
unpredictable enemies that require players to think on their
feet, or generate opponents with unique playing styles and
strategies.
The authors note that while dynamic scripting has shown
promising results in improving game AI’s adaptive perfor-
mance, there is still room for improvement.
Ponsen [4] uses the concept of dynamic scripting and
applies to RTS video game WARGUS against opponents that
each use different tactics. The research showed that the use
of Dynamic Scripting along with the methodologies proposed
by Ponsen generated a strong domain knowledge that can be
used to develop high level AIs.
C. Evolutionary Learning Algorithms
In order to simulate the survival of the fitness and evolution,
Ponsen [5] shows an alternative to dynamic scripting than can
come up with out-of-the-box strategies in order to make the
game more interesting and different in each playthrough. We
need to give the evolutionary algorithm (EA) the basis of the
video game, the rules that the AI has to follow and give them
maximum freedom in decision making.
EA uses chromosomes with rules for solving a problem and
a fitness function which is essential for the algorithm to work
effectively. This is why it is crucial to define the problem that
the AI has to overcome and its limitations.
The EA also involves creating a population of sample
strategies that are then played against a normal AI to measure
the success, each part of the population is a chromosome and
each chromosome has a fitness score according to the fitness
function. Afterwards, by simulating natural selection, only the
solutions with high fitness scores are allowed to ”breed” to
create a child chromosome with similar rules but different
strategies.
D. Player Profiling
Chang Yun [6] introduces the Profile-Based Adaptive Dif-
ficulty System (PADS) and explores its impact on enhancing
gaming experiences. The PADS system focuses on automati-
cally adjust game difficulty levels based on a profile created for
the player taking into account their skill level and proficiency.
By utilizing these player profiles, the PADS system adapts the
game’s difficulty to cater to individual preferences.
The PADS system categorizes players based on their gaming
expertise and goals. The amount of influence that the system
uses is adapted according to the player’s profile at each update.
The paper mentions that the sample game genre used in
the study is a third-person shooter, but it emphasizes that
the profile characteristics would vary for every game due to
different rules, goals, and character sets. This highlights the
flexibility and adaptability of the PADS system to different
game genres.
The experimental results presented in the paper focus on
three expert participants with more than five years of gaming
experience. Each participant had different preferences, and
the PADS system successfully catered to their needs. For
example, participant P06 sought a more balanced experience,
so the system ranked them in not very difficult nor easy
levels of difficulty. Whereas Participant P09 thrived for a more
demanding level, and thus the PADS system chose to stay at
the highest difficulty level for most of the playing time.
E. Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment
In Hunicke’s work [7], designing a dynamic AI has its
focus on the ”environment” of the game rather than the player,
this means that the algorithm mostly changes things such as
world generation or quantity of enemies instead of adapting
the behavior of the AI. The goal of this is to adjust the game’s
overall level of challenge for a group of players with similar
skills.
Hunicke describes the probabilistic method used in his
proposal. The method starts by representing the current state of
the game as a set of random variables, each of which represents
a different aspect of the game ranging from level to quantity of
enemies. By updating these variables after each failed attempt
by the player, the system can adjust the game’s overall level
of challenge.
The probabilistic method used in this system is compu-
tationally efficient, it still requires a significant amount of
processing power. It is argued that this can be addressed by
using parallel processing techniques, such as those used in
modern graphics cards.
While the system was designed with single-player games in
mind, it could also be applied to multiplayer games. An exam-
ple of this is shown in Silva’s proposal [8] where it is applied
to the game DOTA 2, the paper showed that the algorithm is
effective and minimizes the frustration of everyone involved.
It makes the game challenging and the setback of it being a
multiplayer game is addressed by reducing the skill gap of the
players so both novice and experienced players have fun while
playing.
III. TAXONOMY
The work of Chanel [9] shows that playing at different levels
gives rise to different states of joy while also demonstrating
that playing with the same level of difficulty several times
elicits boredom, the opposite of what a game tries to achieve.
The objective of this investigation is to recompile different
proposals on how to solve a crucial problem in video game
development, which is trying to appeal to any public. During
the investigation, some techniques that have been developed
to cater this problem were found although most of them
highlighted a distinctive difficulty in their application.
This survey is trying to appeal to the opinion of the public,
especially video game players as well as experts in the topic
of AI and list some possible solutions that various developers,
game designers and scientists have proposed to tackle the
problem. Obviously each one of them has its adavantages
and disadvantages so in order to describe them better, three
taxonomical classes have been created to group the proposals
with similar characteristics.
With this in mind, we end up with the following taxonom-
ical classes:
Class Papers
Definition of the problem [1], [9]
Proposals with variable previous rules [3], [4], [10], [6]
Proposals with fixed previous rules [2], [5], [7], [8]
Fig. 1. Taxonomy Classes
A. Definition of the problem
This section emphasizes solely on the objective of the
survey and the general direction that the different papers
referenced were aiming to solve which is searching for the
best quality and enjoyment that a person can experience while
playing a video-game.
The work of Carlo Fabricatore [1], among other factors,
elaborates on difficulty in video games as an important factor
that affects how a game is perceived by the player. It suggests
that one of the players’ main objective is to seek challenge,
mastery, and reward, and that difficulty can provide all three
of these factors. However, the paper also notes that too much
difficulty can lead to frustration and disengagement. Therefore,
game designers and developers must find a way to balance
the level of difficulty to keep players engaged without causing
burnout or frustration.
In [9], researchers gathered information from 20 different
people playing videogames to determine the levels of bore-
dom, engagement and anxiety. They suggested that difficulty
is a very important factor when it comes to the boredom of
the players because even while having three different difficulty
options, the players always ended up raising their levels of
boredom with the video game due to the nature of the static
AI that the game used. Paula Silva and her team concluded
that a difficulty level that can vary and accommodate to the
players is much better as it gives room for different positive
emotions to emerge in the player.
As a result, the obstacle that can be clearly seen is the
necessity of an upgraded adaptable difficulty in video games
and that this difficulty does not become stale to the user after
a long period of playing
B. Proposals with variable previous rules
In this section the proposals with variable rules found will
be described with the help of pictures. The concept of variable
rules in this taxonomy refers to the proposals’ willingness to
use and adapt to player input, in other terms, using information
that the player gives on its own to start or continue the
algorithms. These ”variables” can range from specific things
such as the number of units created in a Real Time Strategy
(RTS) Video Game to more generic data like the win rate of
the player against the AI.
For example, Dynamic Scripting uses a set of rulebases that
define the behaviour of the AI during the match to start the
algorithm and includes a weight system to determine the agent
that will be used during the match based on its effectiveness.
The reason as to why the proposal by Spronck [3] is in this
class is beacause the script and behaviour of the AI can be
manipulated willingly or not by the user.
If a player consistently uses a particular strategy that
is effective against a certain type of agent behavior, then
dynamic scripting may adapt its rulebase to counteract that
strategy. Additionally, some versions of dynamic scripting
include an enhancement that allows scaling of the difficulty
 Personalized
Difficulty
in Video Games
Definition of the problem Proposals with variable rules
[1] [9] Fitness Function Player Profiles
[3] [4] [10] [6]
Fig. 2. Taxonomy tree
Fig. 3. Dynamic Scripting
level of the game AI to match the skill level of the human
player. This means that as a player becomes more skilled
at the game, dynamic scripting can adjust its rulebase
to provide a greater challenge. Another example in this
taxonomy is the profiles of the players in [6], where each
user will have a different profile since every person has
different preferences and objectives when playing a video
game. The AI will use these previous variables to find
the most acceptable difficulty for the player so that their
enjoyment is not harmed and their boredom does not increase.
1) Fitness Function: In order to understand the fitness
function, we must know why it is important and where it is
used during the algorithm. The rules that the AI will follow
depend on a weight value which is bounded by a minimum
and maximum. Then the new ruleset of the AI will be defined
by the current weight plus the weight adjustment.
Where F is the fitness, b is the break-even value and both
Rmax and Rmin are the maximum and minimum reward
respectively.
The fitness value is used to decide whether to give rewards
or not, by default the fitness value is configured to always give
Proposals with fixed rules
Hamlet System Learning Frameworks
[7] [8] [5] [2]
Fig. 4. Weight Adjustment Formula
the highest reward the higher the fitness value is. But in order
to elicit more mediocre or less optimal behavior of the AI the
following formula may be used.
Fig. 5. Fitness function equation
Where p is the reward value set by the developer. The
higher p is set, the more effective the opponent AI and
behaviour will be. These allow the algorithm to be very
customizable but locking the configuration during the
execution.
2) Player Profiles: The player profiles are previous infor-
mation collected through surveys and questionnaires and is
used by the PADS to determine the player’s preferred level of
difficulty.
Based on these profiles, the PADS system adapts the
amount of influence it exerts on the game’s difficulty at
each update interval. This means that the system takes into
account the player’s profile characteristics and adjusts the
game difficulty accordingly. The system categorizes players
based on their profiles and tailors the game difficulty to suit
their preferences.

Fig. 6. PADS System Flowchart
3) Strengths:
• More complex and precise system to define the difficulty.
• The use of variable rules allows the AI to work in most
video games without problems.
• The player receives a sense of control over the video
game which in turn improves the overall enjoyment.
• It gives less room for ineffective strategies to develop
because player input will force the AI to upgrade and
counteract it.
4) Weaknesses:
• Easily manipulable by the player input thus becoming
exploitable.
• The user might find the development of the AIs boring
since it will always end up creating an effective strategy
against the player. With fewer characteristics changing.
• Expensive due to the nature of having variable rules, the
algorithms have to receive and manipulate the input to
create a new behavior.
C. Proposals with fixed previous rules
In this section the proposals with determined rules found
will be described with the help of pictures. Unlike variable
rules, the term ”determined” refers to a static way of setting
the behaviour for the AI. The player doesn’t have as much
manipulation or control in these settings as they do in section
B.
These rules are based more on statistical facts and con-
figuration that the developers have used when implementing
the algorithm. In the Evolutionary Learning Algorithms [5],
the chromosomes begin with a set of decisions to take and
actions to make in which, each generation, only the ones that
demonstrate that are good at solving the problem proposed
by the fitness function are allowed to reproduce. The fitness
function may or may not share the same objectives as the
player but it doesn’t mean that he or she can alter it in any
way.
Another example is shown in the Dynamic Difficulty
Adjustment(DDA) proposal [7], where the AI gets information
and makes decisions using the context of the player, items
such as the map, the player’s current location, etc. When
a player has reached a level where they keep dying or are
having trouble beating it, the DDA kicks in to change the
settings of the video game depending on the player.
1) Hamlet System: The Hamlet system is a dynamic dif-
ficulty adjustment (DDA) proposed by Hunicke [7] system
designed to alter difficulty of the current level using individual
player input as a base to make the changes. The Hamlet
System was constructed using Half Life’s game engine Gold-
Src and uses techniques drawn from Inventory Theory and
Operations Research to analyze and modify the ”inventory”
of the game, this includes enemies, items and statistics of
the player such as health with the objective to have a better
control of the difficulty and the overall experience. The system
is designed to keep the player engaged and interested in the
game, which is especially difficult in interactive contexts.
The adjustment in the Hamlet system refers to the process
of altering the game’s different variables of the level based
on the player’s behavior. The system measures the incoming
game data and player input and it also tries to anticipate the
future state of the player. When an undesirable but avoidable
state is predicted, the system makes adjustments to the
settings as necessary. The adjustment actions can be reactive,
which adjust elements that are ”in play” or ”on stage,” or
proactive, which adjust ”off stage” elements that have yet to
appear on screen such as the quantity of enemies spawning
or their health.
2) Learning Frameworks: The GVGAI framework is a
tool for developing artificial intelligence algorithms that can
work on a varied range of video-games without knowledge
of previous rules. Unlike other game AI frameworks, this one
provides game state information in an object-oriented manner
and employs a Video Game Description Language (VGDL)
to set the overall rules and limits of video-games. VGDL
defines the available enemies and non-playable characters,
each with their own general interactions that can happen
during the simulation of the video-game, and the dynamics
of each component are programmed in the framework. This
allows for a wide range of games to be created and tested
within the same framework.
One of the key techniques used in GVGAI is the forward
model, which allows users to simulate states of a video-
game and continue onto different possible future states. This
tool is essential for players and developers alike to reason
about the environment and discover the game mechanics in
their first time being exposed to the game. Additionally, the
GVGAI competition provides a benchmark for testing different
approaches to game AI. The developers are given at least two
different sets of games to train their AI, and a server is set up
to receive submissions and run the controllers on a different
group of games that no competitor had access to. The final
rankings are then calculated from the execution of every AI in
a third batch of games, much like a competitive programming
contest.
3) Strengths:
• More complex and precise system to define the difficulty.
• The use of variable rules allows the AI to work in most
video games without problems.
• The player receives a sense of control over the video
game which in turn improves the overall enjoyment.
• It gives less room for ineffective strategies to develop
because player input will force the AI to upgrade and
counteract it.
4) Weaknesses:
• Easily manipulable by the player input thus becoming
exploitable.
• The user might find the development of the AIs boring
since it will always end up creating an effective strategy
[10] P. Spronck, I. Sprinkhuizen-Kuyper, and E. Postma, “Difficulty scaling
against the player. With fewer characteristics changing.
• Expensive due to the nature of having variable rules, the
algorithms have to receive and manipulate the input to
create a new behavior.
[4] M. J. Ponsen, H. Muñoz-Avila, P. Spronck, and D. W. Aha, “Au-
tomatically acquiring domain knowledge for adaptive game ai using
evolutionary learning,” in Proceedings of the national conference on
artificial intelligence, vol. 20, no. 3. Menlo Park, CA; Cambridge,
MA; London; AAAI Press; MIT Press; 1999, 2005, p. 1535.
[5] M. Ponsen and P. Spronck, “Improving adaptive game ai with evolu-
tionary learning,” Ph.D. dissertation, Masters Thesis, Delft University
of Technology, 2004.
[6] C. Yun, P. Trevino, W. Holtkamp, and Z. Deng, “Pads: enhancing
gaming experience using profile-based adaptive difficulty system,” in
Proceedings of the 5th ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Video Games,
2010, pp. 31–36.
[7] R. Hunicke, “The case for dynamic difficulty adjustment in games,”
in Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on
Advances in computer entertainment technology, 2005, pp. 429–433.
[8] M. P. Silva, V. do Nascimento Silva, and L. Chaimowicz, “Dynamic
difficulty adjustment through an adaptive ai,” in 2015 14th Brazilian
symposium on computer games and digital entertainment (SBGames).
IEEE, 2015, pp. 173–182.
[9] G. Chanel, C. Rebetez, M. Bétrancourt, and T. Pun, “Boredom, engage-
ment and anxiety as indicators for adaptation to difficulty in games,” in
Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Entertainment and
media in the ubiquitous era, 2008, pp. 13–17.
of game ai,” in Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on
Intelligent Games and Simulation (GAME-on 2004), 2004, pp. 33–37.

IV. C ONCLUSIONS
AI plays a crucial role when trying to enhance the entertain-
ment and quality value of video games, this paired with the
search for a personalized difficulty and experience in video
games has inspired many researchers to develop newer and
optimized techniques. These proposals have had both the best
interests of the player and the innovation of said AI in video
games in mind. The main objective of this paper is to try to
find the right balance between enjoyment and hassle during a
session of playing video games.
Each proposal discussed presented upsides and downsides,
with the main public objective being a vastly different compo-
sition of individuals, choosing the best approach comes down
to a matter of preference. What has been observed is that
each proposal managed to do its purpose of giving a solution
to the problem discussed before. Every approach enables the
user to customize a video game to their liking by providing
challenges, mastery and rewards without causing frustration or
boredom in the process.
We can conclude that through the use of AI and distinct
revolutionary techniques video games are able to offer a
more immersive and enjoyable experience for players of all
backgrounds and skill levels therefore opening the video game
market for anyone.

R EFERENCES
[1] C. Fabricatore, “Gameplay and game mechanics: a key to quality in
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[2] D. Perez-Liebana, S. Samothrakis, J. Togelius, T. Schaul, and S. Lucas,
“General video game ai: Competition, challenges and opportunities,” in
Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, vol. 30,
no. 1, 2016.
[3] P. Spronck, M. Ponsen, I. Sprinkhuizen-Kuyper, and E. Postma, “Adap-
tive game ai with dynamic scripting,” Machine Learning, vol. 63, pp.
217–248, 2006.