From Declarative Languages to Declarative Processing in Computer Games

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential of declarative processing to significantly enhance computer game performance by translating character AI scripting into relational algebra, and discusses future research directions for game engine design.

Contribution

It proposes a research agenda for integrating declarative processing into game engines, including language features, query processing challenges, and support for complex game scenarios.

Findings

Declarative processing can improve game performance.

Challenges include adaptive query planning and parallel processing.

Future game engines may be fundamentally redesigned.

Abstract

Recent work has shown that we can dramatically improve the performance of computer games and simulations through declarative processing: Character AI can be written in an imperative scripting language which is then compiled to relational algebra and executed by a special games engine with features similar to a main memory database system. In this paper we lay out a challenging research agenda built on these ideas. We discuss several research ideas for novel language features to support atomic actions and reactive programming. We also explore challenges for main-memory query processing in games and simulations including adaptive query plan selection, support for parallel architectures, debugging simulation scripts, and extensions for multi-player games and virtual worlds. We believe that these research challenges will result in a dramatic change in the design of game engines over the next decade.