The Computational Complexity of Portal and Other 3D Video Games
Computational Complexity
2016-12-01 v1
Abstract
We classify the computational complexity of the popular video games Portal and Portal 2. We isolate individual mechanics of the game and prove NP-hardness, PSPACE-completeness, or (pseudo)polynomiality depending on the specific game mechanics allowed. One of our proofs generalizes to prove NP-hardness of many other video games such as Half-Life 2, Halo, Doom, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Grand Theft Auto, Left 4 Dead, Mass Effect, Deus Ex, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil. These results build on the established literature on the complexity of video games.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1611.10319,
title = {The Computational Complexity of Portal and Other 3D Video Games},
author = {Erik D. Demaine and Joshua Lockhart and Jayson Lynch},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1611.10319},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
24 pages. Based on and overlaps with work in the MEng thesis of Jayson Lynch