Griefhelm - 0.4.2 (Experimental AI) file

Griefhelm 0.4.1 - Trailer - Indie DB

Hello everyone,
Thanks to Phantom8866, I decided to put up experimental builds for the work-in-progress AI. So I will be uploading builds in which you guys can try out how the AI is coming out and give me feedback and suggestions!
Of course, the AI will be doing some weird stuff, cause I'll upload progress without making sure everything is stable and functioning.
That being said, I'd like to show the AI's current state and how I approached its development and tackled problems.

As of now the AI will move, jump, climb ledges, fight and run towards the goal if it notices it has the advantage to do so. The jumping has been (and still is) a nightmare to handle, and it is still in a very raw state right now, so you might see the AI just stopping in places where it should jump :(
Besides that, I'm pretty happy with how the combat is turning out, and I'd like to focus on that a bit and tell you how I decided to do things.

It all starts with perfection

My approach to AI is to start by making the perfect machine, the perfect combatant... well at least to the extent I'm capable of. So the first thing I did was making the AI's reflexes instantaneous so that there is no way to get through its blocks, as you see in the video below.

AI Blocking - Indie DB

Afterward, I just needed to add weighted random functions on timing and direction errors (weighted based on AI skill).
The same approach was also applied to parrying.


AI Parry - Indie DB

For the attack, I simply have parameters to define "aggressiveness" by interval deviation. Of course, the AI will not start an attack if an attack is already incoming, he will instead try blocking it to counter-attack. Again, this "perfect" behavior just needs to be driven by error parameters.

AI Combat - Indie DB

These are the current Combat Skill-defining parameters:

For now I set them to something that seemed decent, but as the developer of the game, I completely kick a** in it :), so I don't know if I made the AI too strong. Therefore, I can't wait for your feedback!

'Till Next time,
Johnny Dale Lonack

Available Gamemodes

• Tug-of-war: This is the core gamemode of Griefhelm. It works just like in Nidhogg, who gets the kill gets the lead and needs to run towards the goal. But that's not all, unlike Nidhogg, Griefhelm supports up to 4 players for this mode. The struggles to make this work were incredibly painful, especially handling the camera behavior and player respawn. Nevertheless, I am really happy with the results and need to hunt down any bugs you guys find ;)
• Free for all / Skirmish: Ignorance at its best, you are all thrown into the same screen starting a bloodbath and backstabbing your friends in their effort of blocking and striking other opponents. Oh, a cool way of playing this is actually having one player fight another one while the others watch and whoever wins gets to fight next one. Once the match ends, the player who survived gets to start against the first one that died the match before.
• Team* skirmish: Two teams fight each other, and there is friendly fire so don't expect to thrust through your teammate to kill the opponent. However, I'll leave friendly fire as an option in the future.

* For all the team-based gamemodes players will have colored plumes on their helms to identify their team.

WARNING:
-At least 2 players will be necessary.
-You can also play keyboard + gamepad, to do so player 1 must join by clicking with the mouse!
-Expect bugs and all that :)

BRIEF DESCRIPTION:
The combat is directional, meaning that players will need to choose the direction of attack and to avoid getting hit, they'll need to block in the correct direction, or dodge the hit by simply moving (this won't always be an option though).
There are three attack directions (Up: Overhead Slash, Mid: Slash, Down: Thrust).
The directional blocking is done through a stance system. For example, if the player is in the stance with the sword up, he'll block incoming overhead slashes.

CONTROLS:
Walk/Run ________ Left Stick
Jump ____________ Left Shoulder/Bumper
Crouch __________ Left Trigger
Stance/Block_____ Right Stick
Attack*___________ Right Trigger (while in a stance)

*Right Stick Up + Right Trigger: Overhead Slash
Right Stick Left/Right + Right Trigger: Mid Slash
Right Stick Down + Right Trigger: Thrust

I would love to hear suggestions, criticism, feedback from all of you who try this, I really want to work together with the community to shape this game in this best way possible :)
Feel free to also think of what game modes would fit with this type of directional combat.

Cheers,
Johnny Dale Lonack