Paul Roberts

Senior Lecturer

School of Digital, Technologies and Arts

I am a professional game AI programmer who has worked at a number of high profile games studios, including Activision, Team17, Traveller's Tales, and Sumo Digital. I have credits on games such as Call of Duty, Worms, Pitfall! and Lego games. I have also run two indie games studios, which have released a number of mobile titles. I focused on the technical direction of the studios along with financial aspects. During this time I pitched to numerous publishers and competitions in the pursuit of funding. I have written and edited a number of books on game artificial intelligence. These cover the basics right up to professional practices. These books are highly regarded in the games industry.

Professional memberships and activities

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Academic qualifications

MRes in Computer Science (Specialising in Game Artificial Intelligence), University of Staffordshire
PgCert Higher and Professional Education, University of Staffordshire
BSc (Hons) Computer Games Programming, University of Staffordshire
Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) 70-316 – Windows Based Applications Visual C#.Net, Computeach

Expertise

Game Artificial Intelligence
Games Programming
C++ Programming

Research interests

Game Artificial Intelligence Believability, Agent-based decision-making

Teaching

Game Artificial Intelligence
C++ Games Programming
Unity Game Development Pathfinding

Publications

Roberts, P. (2027) Game AI Uncovered Focus: Sports, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Fl.

Roberts, P. (2027) Behaviour Structure: A Decision-Making Approach for Team Sport AI, in Game AI Uncovered Focus: Sports, edited by Paul Roberts, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Fl. Roberts, P.

Roberts, P. (2026) Pathfinding in Video Games, CRC Press.

Roberts, P. (2026) Game AI Uncovered: Volume Five, CRC Press.

Roberts, P. (2026) RMA*: Restricted Memory A*, in Game AI Uncovered: Volume Five, edited by Paul Roberts. CRC Press.

Roberts, P., and Vickers, J. (2026) Intelligent Cover, in Game AI Uncovered: Volume Five, edited by Paul Roberts. CRC Press.

Roberts, P. (2026) Game AI Uncovered: Volume Four, CRC Press.

Roberts, P. (2026) Go with the Flow: Flow Fields – Beyond a Single Target, in Game AI Uncovered: Volume Four, edited by Paul Roberts. CRC Press.

Roberts, P. (2025) Game AI Uncovered: Volume Three, CRC Press.

Roberts, P. (2024) JP-DRS: Jump-Point Directed Recursion Search, in Game AI Uncovered: Volume Three, edited by Paul Roberts. CRC Press, pp. 127-136.

Roberts, P. (2024) Quarterback AI, in Game AI Uncovered: Volume Three, edited by Paul Roberts. CRC Press, pp. 181-188.

Roberts, P. (2024) Game AI Uncovered: Volume Two, CRC Press.

Roberts, P. (2024) Touchdown! AI Scenarios within American Football, in Game AI Uncovered: Volume Three, edited by Paul Roberts. CRC Press, pp. 189-199.

Roberts, P. (2024) AI Awareness in Sports Games, in Game AI Uncovered: Volume Two, edited by Paul Roberts. CRC Press, pp. 72-79.

Roberts, P. (2024) Crafting the Illusion: Difficulty Scenarios, in Game AI Uncovered: Volume Two, edited by Paul Roberts. CRC Press, pp. 80-84.

Roberts, P. (2024) Game AI Uncovered: Volume One, CRC Press.

Roberts, P. (2024) Believable Routes: A Pathfinding Acceptability Metric, in Game AI Uncovered: Volume One, edited by Paul Roberts. CRC Press, pp. 73-82.

Rallabandi, S., and Roberts, P. (2024) Reactive Behaviour Trees, in Game AI Uncovered: Volume One, edited by Paul Roberts. CRC Press, pp. 54-63.

Roberts, P. (2022) Artificial Intelligence in Games, CRC Press.

Roberts, P. (2020) An introduction to pathfinding in games, in Wireframe Magazine, #48, pp. 50-55.

Roberts, P. (2020) AI-Man: a handy guide to video game AI, in Wireframe Magazine, #43, pp. 60-63.

Roberts, P. M. (2018) Directed Recursion Search: A Directed DFS for Online Pathfingin in Random Grid-Base Environments, 38th SGAI International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pp. 165-170.

Roberts, P. (2017) Gamification in Games Education, GameDeveloper.com.

Roberts, P. (2016) Bringing Industry into Education, GameDeveloper.com.

External profiles

ORCID