AI Learns to Play Spaceship
AI Learns to Play Spaceship is a simple game-based machine learning project. The spaceship earns points by collecting coins, but the run ends if it collides with an asteroid. This creates a clear reward-and-penalty system that allows an AI agent to learn from repeated attempts. Using TensorFlow, the spaceship gradually improves its decision-making so it can collect more coins while avoiding dangerous obstacles.
Development
1. Create a new project
- We started by creating a new project with Next.js so the game could live inside a modern web application with a simple development workflow and easy deployment.
- This gave us a clean frontend structure for rendering the interface, managing updates, and preparing the project for future experiments.
2. Create a canvas
- We created the game canvas with D3 so the spaceships, coins, rocks, and movement logic could be drawn and updated continuously in the browser.
- This layer is what makes the simulation visual. It lets us control object positions frame by frame and observe how the spaceship behaves while the rules and learning model evolve.
3. Create the rules of the game
- The game starts by placing spaceships inside the play area and giving them a simple physical model to follow.
- There is no friction, so once a spaceship gains speed it keeps moving in the same direction until it rotates or accelerates again.
- The spaceship can rotate and accelerate, which creates the core challenge of controlling momentum instead of moving like a basic arcade character.
- Coins reward the agent with points, while rocks end the run immediately. That clear reward and penalty structure gives the AI a measurable objective.
4. Adding machine learning
- We created this game as a training environment so the AI could learn how to navigate the map instead of being manually scripted.
- Every time the spaceship hits a rock it loses value, and every time it reaches a coin it gains value. It also loses points for staying in the same place, which pushes the model to keep exploring.
- After each round, the best performing spaceship becomes the basis for the next generation. Over time, the model keeps improving by repeating the cycle and refining its decisions.
