Search Applied to Adversarial Games

Initial state
Current board position (description of current game status)

Operators
Legal moves a player can make

Terminal nodes
leaf nodes in the tree, these indicate the game is over

Utility function
payoff function, value of the outcome of a game
Tic tac toe, utility is -1, 0, or 1.

Many games represent idealistic simulations of real-world functions (chess represents war) and are easier to form as search problems than real-world problems