Okay so like, over a month ago I said I was in the US and working on Shield High again. That last part was a half truth. I HAD been working on it again, but since settling into the US basically nothing got done. In my defense, I've been busy cranking out the other project, which is coming along slowly but surely. I'm building the AI right now and I want to kill myself. So I figured I wouldn't bother posting until I actually started working again. Seeing as I'm presently taking a break from Karen's dialogue, I'd say this qualifies.
So yes, Shield High is now officially upgraded from the "project I'm working on" pile to "project I'm ACTIVELY working on" pile. Other news, I'm now married! That happened last Saturday. It was horrible. Mostly because it was all my wife's family and none of mine. Normally I wouldn't bore you with too many details about my personal life, but I'm making an exception for this one instance because it's a (hopefully) once in a lifetime event.
So, going forward from here I'm going to try and touch base more regularly, post screenshots of both Shield High and the new project which I don't recall if I explained what it was but just in case I haven't I won't mention it's name here. Also, going to resume musings probably, since I want to talk about life simulators again. Pretty sure I've already bitched about them, but I can't let things rest.
Until then.
Pudding Earl
Well congrats on the marriage. Could be worse. I attended one where both families where there, but they didn't like each other (except for bride and groom of course). Talk about a long dinner. But hey, it's done so enjoy :).
ReplyDeleteBTW for game design, always remember to think of the impact of anything you're designing. What does it bring to the game, what will the players see for the work you put into it. As a coder myself I found it common that the stuff people noticed was the stuff that took a hour to do, and the stuff they thought nothing of took days heh.
Even in big budget games, AI is often spoofed with scripts. The question could be, would the player notice any difference between real AI moving NPCs around, or would defined paths be easier. What does it bring to the game, is it needed for some aspect?
The most common fakes are AI in RTS games. Instead of making it smarter for different difficulties, they just code in AI player cheats.
Radiant AI in Oblivion/Skyrim etc., was known for it's early quirkiness. But it brings believable behaviour to an open world game. Like people closing shop at night etc. But even then it took mods to get people to put warm clothing or rain gear on when it's cold/raining. :). But it was need for that whole realistic feel those games were based on.
Anyway, just some thoughts in picking your coding battles, because you don't want to make yourself miserable, life can do good enough job at that at times.
Thanks!
DeleteI'm aware that a lot of the work I'm putting into the AI is probably going to have to be re-done, but given the breadth of the decisions they have to make, being a TBS game with a tone of different maps, and possible characters being involved, I think implementing a monte carlo sort of system is probably my best bet. So far it functions...okay, but I need to do some more optimizing. I am in fact going to cheat a bit of stuff, and just remove a bunch of options from the table that would add unnecessary processing time in a solid 98% of situations.
But yeah, thanks for the advice. If the AI is still not making progress in the next month or so, I'll probably scrap it. Right now it runs simulations fine, but something in the way it builds paths causes it to path off the map. I think that's a bug in the building and reading of paths more than it is a bug in the AI though. Not sure, haven't solved it yet.