nitrosodiumepicfps

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~FINAL BROADCAST~

Hello to anyone who sees this; fans, friends, followers, and that one person who has liked every one of my posts. (Thanks for that by the way). I'm moving to @nitrosodiumequilibriumproject for my next game project, so if you wanna see that, head there. This blog will go defunct since I've packed up the Overdeath project.

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LAST-MINUTE BLOGGING: AI in games

Just realised I need to post about AI in games. So, here we go.

In shooter games, the AI is generally geared towards killing the player in some way. This can thereafter be interpreted as simple or advanced. If we look at the former; in the original Doom, enemies stand totally still until alerted, at which point they move towards the player, occasionally stopping to fire a few shots at the player if they have ranged attacks. They can in-fight if a stray shot hits another enemy, but that's essentially the run-down of their AI. They're not massively intelligent. Compare this to the Replicas of F.E.A.R., still what I consider some of the most advanced shooter AI to this day. They use something called Goal-Oriented Action Planning (GOAP) which makes them act somewhat like a military squad. For example, if the AI notices you, it will set a goal to kill you, and then send some soldiers your way. If you then interrupt that plan by killing one or blockading an entrance, the AI checks to see if that plan is still viable, and so their next plan might be to not die, so they'll retreat, take cover, or maybe try to flank you as you retreat. I originally thought the AI could speak to each other - they can't really, but a squad can all share the same GOAP AI, and they'll do an audio callout for each step of the plan, as if they're talking amongst each other.

In RTS games, while graphically things can look simpler; oftentimes the AI working behind the scenes is more mathematically complex. For example, in something like StarCraft, the game will have a 'build order' as part of its AI, telling it when to build workers, buildings or units. It will then give the effect of strategic planning, deciding when to rush or stay back, when to expand their forces, and attacking when it assumes it has enough units. It does this by analysing how many units/how much power the player has, but it also does somewhat cheat by automatically knowing the location of buildings and strategic points within the map. There are interesting ways people have scaled the power of different AI factions, including pitting two AIs of equal intelligence against each other to see the random number generator decide a victor. It is interesting to note that the most aggressive AIs are often the least proficent, as they endlessly deploy troops with little to no defences or supply lines.

In open world games, AI has to be advanced enough to traverse gigantic levels. Ironically, more advanced AI can often look more ridiculous - think the famously braindead NPCs in so many Bethesda games. I'll hold onto this idea for a bit; interestingly, Skyrim NPCs can run away from a fight, or give up, which isn't something you see in a lot of games. The Courier character will literally follow you anywhere on the map to deliver a message to you, and while determined, will oftentimes end up being attacked due to their tunnel vision.

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god i love how mario is staring at the shirt in utter disbelief meanwhile luigi breaks the fourth wall with a "dude idk why he bought it either"

EGX research

at EGX there were so many different games, including a sneak peek at the new super Mario bros game at the time, I even met Mario and Luigi, here is a picture. i apologize about the shirt, i bought it there and it was 10 pounds.

the new super Mario bros game was really good, i like how it related to my 2d side scroller game at the time bit i really had fun playing the new game

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Overdeath Is (theoretically) Done

The best way I can describe my endeavors, and how it feels to play, is like if you tried to teach an AI how to make a game. "The game needs enemies, and guns to shoot the enemies, and a level, and notes, and sound effects." But the AI has no knowledge of how these things coalesce and work together within the experience, all it knows is to add them. So you have a giant empty map filed with swarms of bumbling stupid enemies, and a few guns for dealing with them. But there's no pacing, no escalation; you can't even call it a shooting gallery or turret section - there is NOTHING here for you. Still, as mentioned before, I've learned from my mistakes. The core of the game, the experience, the loop, the heart and soul of what separates the interactive audio-visual endeavor we call a game from all other forms of media. The interactivity. But, no point moping. It's time to zip up the project and prepare for the next. And now I know how to avoid the pitfalls.

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More UV Shenanigans

I made a cassette tape in Maya, using extrusions, booleans, and everything else we've learned.

I exported the UV Map into Photoshop, and pasted chunks of a tape image to make the texture.

Finally, I exported the texture into Maya.

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Reference images for my mixtape (yes, i'm making a mixtape, yes, i didn't know i was supposed to until the last day of the course)

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Turns out I have considerably more to do.

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More on the Sound Aspect

I feel it important to note that I did somewhat achieve one of my sound goals with Overdeath; obviously the main one was the distorted music effects, but another was having all your little actions create a sound. Shooting makes a bang, an expanding Inflata-Box makes a ballooning sound, and killing the robot enemy makes a sound of metal being crushed. This was part of my idea about immersion; a good soundscape can really elevate a game more than anything else, and a fitting soundtrack can be the difference between a good level and a bad level. Moreover, it adds realism when all your interactions give an audio response. This is something I did accomplish.

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Quick note to whoever's marking my blog

While the "Games with a similar X" type of posts look like there isn't enough there to fill the quota (10-20) I've done enough other posts talking about my inspirations to have completed that part of the course.

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Games with a similar Mechanic P2

I'm gonna say that what Overdeath had planned was a dynamic music system. Just because every possible combat scenario didn't have its own music track mapped out doesn't mean it's not dynamic. The fact that it changes based on external events in-game mean that it's dynamic, and thus I'm gonna include System Shock 1. This was one of the first immersive sims, and it shows - despite coming out the same year as Doom 2, System Shock is firmly entrenched in the even more archaic and technical game formula, with its graphical fidelity resembling a cross between a spreadsheet and a BIOS menu. And technical it was, having many unique details. As previously mentioned in prior blog posts, the music would change based on whether you were in combat, what part of the level you were in, how much health you had, how much control SHODAN had on the level, and other things. Of course, when listened to outside the game it sounds like a mess of MIDI clown horns and computer sounds. There's also the radiation... when in a radioactive area, the music is replaced with a digital grinding sound, I assume to emulate the sound of your augmented ears being messed up by the rad levels. That's definitely similar to my idea.

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Games with a similar Mechanic P1

ULRAKILL is actually a pretty good game. I'm not good at it by any means; I've barely got through Limbo. But, it's fun and very exhilarating. Ultrakill oozes charm, from its style meter and super-fast movement, to the absolutely insane combos you can chain while you backflip through the air, riding rockets with grappling hooks and richocheting railgun shots off glinting coins to culminate in literal deluges of blood. If you think about how Krunker was an extrapolation of the '360-noscope' era of shooters, Ultrakill is like a homage to Quake and other shooters of that period. Fast movement becomes ridiculously fast, with added sliding, wall-hopping and ground pounds to increase velocity. The goriness of those old games goes from a ghoulish novelty to the centrepoint of the entire experience; every enemy erupts into a hissing, bubbling geyser of blood which is the only way to heal yourself. Mastery of the slick movement and weapon-chaining is the heart and soul of Ultrakill, and now with advancements to AI that were missing in the Quakes and Unreals of the past, Ultrakill's enemies move so fast and frantically that you need to be so much more skilled to penetrate.

But, I digress. When you take a large amount of damage in Ultrakill, the music fades and almost seems to jar to a halt, like V1's systems are buffering as they take in all the data. It's sort of similar to my idea for the music becoming more distorted and noised-up as you take damage.

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Games with a similar Artstyle P3

I believe I talked a little about Severed Steel a little in my previous blog, but I haven't gone into too much detail on it. Essentially, it's a new-wave movement shooter where you have an arm cannon that can blast through walls. This is accentuated with slo-mo combat where you must siphon energy off tanky mechanical enemies to juice up your cannon. It's filled with references and in-jokes to previous shooters, such as a level where you must find a crowbar, a golden gun, and Master Chief's helmet. Because everything is destructible, it's made of voxels, and it looks really good. Everything has this semi-reflective glint to it, and bars of neon light cover nearly all the walls. It's this abstract approximation of a real place, somewhere between a Portal test chamber and some kind of glass-heavy secret agency building. Despite this though, it's still got a low-detail high-style retro vibe to it.

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Games with a similar Artstyle P2

Unturned is one of those open-world zombie quasi-realism games that released in waves around the early-mid 2010s. You have to manage your hunger, thirst, energy, health, and of course your infection levels. Not to mention, the zombies in this game are fast and dangerous. Once you're seen, you're as good as dead if you're not prepared. It makes for a gripping, open-ended adventure where stealth is just as necessary as powerful weaponry. Artistically, it's not bad. The character models are very chunky, almost like Lego minifigs, but I wouldn't exactly call it voxelated, just lo-fidelity. It's all modern techology; vehicles, architecture, weapons, tools, but every item's silhouette is generally quite readable.

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Games with a Similar Artstyle P1

I've made posts like this in the past, but better to be safe than sorry right?

Krunker.io is one of my favourite games to just pick up and play. It's a fast-paced browser shooter in which you pick from roughly 20 classes and get shooting. The levels are built like skate parks, filled with tight corners and ramps to build up your speed. Crouch-hopping is a key part of Krunker's movement, and if you're slow in a firefight, you're dead. It feels like all the most tryhard elements of common FPS games were boiled down into a fine-tuned, voxelated experience: quickscopes, bunnyhopping, and of course, 360 noscopes. It's like a love letter to 2010s FPS games that will probably outlast them due to its sheer accessibility, being a browser game and not too technologically demanding. One slight issue is, due to being a refinement of all the unintentional trickshot abilities in games prior, it has a pretty high skill floor. I will forever be annoyed by that one sniper in every game, with a thirty-to-zero KDR, who you're sure is hacking but you can't kick because the player is too high level. That is the main thing I don't like about Krunker, is that it caters to tryhards who spend hours grinding instead of dipping in-and-out for a few minutes like I do.

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Thinking about Shapes

Another part of the next brief is three shapes: circles, squares and triangles. Basically, everything in some capacity is made out of these shapes, and they all represent basic schools of thought. Sometimes a circle is seen to represent heaven, a square earth, and a triangle humans. In other contexts, the triangle equals power, the circle is perfection, and the square is solidity. Now, obviously, the Equilibrium, the ultimate balance, would be a combination of all three energies operating together. This is what I want to establish in my game. The centaur is a good character because, as previously mentioned, it combines the insurmountable innovative power of humans and the raw, unshackled physical prowess of animals. So, it will probably have some kind of triangular glyph on its body. The animals of the forest which you must work with on your journey are the guardians of this ancient world, the firmament, the keystones. So they'll all have a square as part of their design, I think. The enemies will be an outside force coming in, i.e. another dimension, so they'll have lots of circular glyphs and rings incorporated into them. Equally, you could do a thing where each symbol represents the surface that the animal moves on; triangle for sky, square for earth, and circle for water.

The thing about a brief like this, is you can look at it objectively, i.e. "my game needs to have circles, squares and triangles" and come up with some funky way to include those shapes. Or, you can look at it hypothetically, looking beyond the brief, and get more introspective with it. Instead of seeing the shapes as shapes, look at what they represent within various cultures and theories, different art movements, et cetera. So far my Equilibrium project not only has thoughts about the relationship between humans and nature, but ways of moving through different energies/environments; water, earth and air. I have a bit of a special interest concerning the four classical elements (water, earth, air and fire) and how they were perceived and written about by alchemists and philosophers. There were beings seen to inhabit the various elements; gnomes for earth, undines for water, salamanders for fire and sylphs for air. I haven't thought about fire as an element for my game, but a key part is using different animals to traverse through elements beyond your own. Basically, success comes from symbiosis with nature and animals. I think it's a very good message, and works for a good game idea.

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A Level Of Reflection

I would say that I've reflected well on the experience that was Overdeath. On a basal level, I've learned key 3D modelling tools, but on a more personal level, I've seen the differences between 3D programming and 2D programming, and the crux of what I've learned, making the key gameplay loop before anything else.

I understand that Overdeath has the key components of what I planned for it to have - multiple guns, shooting, enemies, movement, a level you can proceed through, and notes to tell a more cohesive story. Issue is, it's a machine without gears, a car without wheels. There's no gameplay in there to make everything fit together. This, in my opinion, above anything else, is why TWL succeeded and Overdeath did not. TWL, even in its early stages, was a platformer. You jump around and get to the end. Everything from that point was layered like a delicious lasagna, first the collectibles, then the damage sources, then the interactive elements, and then enemies. With Overdeath, wherein the key element was shooting enemies, first I did level geometry, then actor tags, then landscaping, then moving platforms, then enemies, and then it took fine-tuning the AI to even have something that could be called playable. It's something I want to remedy with my Equilibrium game; I'll make a really good platformer as a base, and then add hurt triggers, and then friendly animals to help you get over the obstacles, and then enemies, and then a way to fight back. Obviously, first will come sprites and map design. But the important thing is... Now I Know How.

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Looking Forward

So far, I have a vague understanding of my next brief. It's gonna be on an arcade, and it's about Equilibrium. Now in the context of the brief, equilibrium seems to detail a symbiosis between mankind and nature. At a talk I went to, where I sat on uncomfortable wooden pews for hours on end, I saw that most of the games related to this concerned nature, but they were either slightly charming light shows or connecting tree branch PNGs together. Not exactly a stimulating gameplay experience. Now, I also had the idea of Equilibrium being more vague, i.e. the balance of two variables. Now I had a game before that emulated this idea perfectly, it was called 'Sweat Pursuit'. Basically, you were in a car in an infinite runner type scenario, being chased by another guy driving a car named Chubb. You could pick up burgers and coins on the road, and throw burgers behind you at Chubb. Each burger you throw slows him down and decreases his Hunger meter, which also affects his speed. So, you'd have to balance Chubb's hunger and the amount of burgers you were carrying; because of the way Chubb's AI works, he'd only continue to get faster. Eventually, burgers didn't even slow him down, just push him back. So I thought of redoing this equilibrium idea in a more natural setting; you'd be driving some sort of sci-fantasy truck through a savanna, but there would be predators, lions or something, following you. So you could drop your cargo on the lions, which would affect the ecosystem, and also decrease your end-of-level rating. Conversely, you could stop to pick up more cargo to get your rating back up, but you'd be slowing down and allowing the lions a free hit on you. But I felt like this idea was forced and questionable; a non-linear infinite runner is very different to the physical, linear games i'd previously made and I'm not sure whether I would understand the technology enough. It'd kind of be a TWL gun scenario, where I focused too hard on making the technical game rather than the playable game.

So, my new idea pulls away the curtain a little and leans harder into the theming of nature. It'll be a basic platformer with some fantasy elements, and less unique technological things. Here's how I got the name. Equilibium = equus librum. Freedom Horse. So, my first idea is to have you play as a centaur. You can trot, gallop, jump long distances and shoot arrows, because centaurs always use bows. To bolster the theme of nature - not only because you're both human and animal as a centaur - but because you'll be using friendly animals to progress. Ride a pollinating water-elephant through a lake, or use some sorta giant sugar-glider to go through a long cavern. You can absolutely kill these animals, but you shouldn't, because then you'll be stuck. Some animals will be against you, like other fantasy creatures, satyrs/fauns perhaps. It'll be technologically similar to TWL, but I need a good idea of what will be in the game so I don't get bogged down. Because, chances are, I will if I don't allocate my time.

EDIT: Turns out I'm incredibly stupid, and equus librum means The Horse Book. However, this could be interpreted as "story of horses", which works to make this whole analogy seem deep and not just a corruption of barely-understood pig latin.