Great summary of current state of the art with links to interesting projects: GVG-AI, VGDL...
Videos games are also essential for AI pedagogy. Creating Pac-Man agents in Stanford's AI class is a great example. Most players can barely get a "strawberry" but to see a trained agent mimicking human expert level play is eye-opening.
Quick reminder: Global Game Jam 2016 starts Jan. 29 and NYU is hosting its annual jam!
To anyone who's never done the Pacman projects: I highly recommend them[1]. They are an absolute blast and incredibly satisfying. Plus, if you don't know Python, they are a great way to learn.
The course I took used the Norvig text[2] as a textbook, which I also recommend.
[2]http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Modern-Approac... Note that the poor reviews center on the price, the digital/Kindle edition and the fact that the new editions don't differ greatly from the older ones. If you've never read it and you have the $$, a hardbound copy makes a great learning and reference text, and it's the kind of content that's not going to go out of date.
I'll second the recommendation for Norvig and Russell's text. It's the first textbook I've ever actually wanted to sit down and read outside of assignments.
Videos games are also essential for AI pedagogy. Creating Pac-Man agents in Stanford's AI class is a great example. Most players can barely get a "strawberry" but to see a trained agent mimicking human expert level play is eye-opening.
Quick reminder: Global Game Jam 2016 starts Jan. 29 and NYU is hosting its annual jam!
http://gamecenter.nyu.edu/event/global-game-jam-2016/