Synthetic User Generation in Games: Cloning Player Behavior with Transformer Models
Alfredo Chapa Mata, Hisa Martínez Nimi, Juan Carlos Chacón · Information · 2025
User-centered design (UCD) commonly requires direct player participation, yet budget limitations or restricted access to users can impede this goal. To address these challenges, this research explores a transformer-based approach coupled with a diffusion process to replicate real player behavior in a 2D side-scrolling action–adventure environment that emphasizes exploration. By collecting an extensive set of gameplay data from real participants in an open-source game, “A Robot Named Fight!”, this study gathered comprehensive state and input information for training. A transformer model was then adapted to generate button-press sequences from encoded game states, while the diffusion mechanism iteratively introduced and removed noise to refine its predictions. The results indicate a high degree of replication of the participant’s actions in contexts similar to the training data, as well as reasonable adaptation to previously unseen scenarios. Observational analysis further confirmed that the model mirrored essential aspects of the user’s style, including navigation strategies, the avoidance of unnecessary combat, and selective obstacle clearance. Despite hardware constraints and reliance on a single observer’s feedback, these findings suggest that a transformer–diffusion methodology can robustly approximate user behavior. This approach holds promise not only for automated playtesting and level design assistance in similar action–adventure games but also for broader domains where simulating user interaction can streamline iterative design and enhance player-centric outcomes.