Thanks!
I've been kicking around the idea of using evolutionary algorithms to test gameplay balance, and it's cool to see that someone else is already working on it.
I've been kicking around the idea of using evolutionary algorithms to test gameplay balance, and it's cool to see that someone else is already working on it.
The gist is that games are fragile with respect to mutations (motivating the need for a search paradigm not based on gradualism). This fragility may not exhibit itself as strongly for the parameter tweaking involved in the balancing problem, but balancing quickly shades into general game design when you start to consider non-trivial tweaks.
The project I was thinking of was going to be a tower defense game, and I wasn't planning on trying to develop any rules automatically. Rather, I was thinking in terms of using an evolutionary system to pick weapon and enemy strengths that lead to balanced gameplay.
So, I would probably get away with it, but I'm wide open to different ideas.