Things have been a little slower getting the AI engine completed, as I’ve transitioned to a new job and introduced my 4th child into the world. In addition the team spent a lot of time creating the Dystopia teaser which can be viewed here. All in all, however, the team is satisfied with the progress made and anticipate a new video demonstrating more complete AI sometime this Fall. We are in the process of assembling a vertical slice to demonstrate initial gameplay (planned target date for completion is this Fall). The vertical slice will be used by the team to aide decision making for optimizing Dystopia’s gameplay mechanics (deceive, evade, survive). The vertical slice will allow for experimenting with unique player and AI encounters and validate gameplay mechanics before going into full production.
This latest AI video comes as a result of 5 additional months of work (so from Dec to May) again at a pace of about 5hrs per week. From May to this passed August we’ve also been adding new features to the AI engine, but they won’t be ready for demonstration until later this Fall.In this video you will observe the AI’s ability to sense the player’s presence. This is achieved through the use of multiple view cones, vision signals, and an alert manager. The AI enters three different awareness levels: unaware, alert, aware/attack. Unaware is represented by having no “eye” sprite above the AI’s head. As the AI starts to become aware of a presence you will observe the “eye” sprite to begin to color-in. Once the AI is aware of a presence, the “eye” changes to yellow which signifies that the AI is alert to a presence but doesn’t know what the presence is. And finally a color of red signifies the AI knows the presence and will attack. Note, however, that this is an alpha so you will observe poor animation blending and some minor bugs.
This video demonstrates the very basic building blocks that will be used to generate complex AI. This will be evident in future blog posts intended for release later this Fall 2016. Enjoy and provide feedback if you have the time!
