GBGames
I went to bed after 5:30AM after getting some rudimentary AI in. I don’t know why the ground-based characters have no second-thoughts about going through the trees and mountains. If anything, they should want to avoid them. I’m sure there’s a bug in the implementation.
I woke up feeling fairly crappy, but I know what will fix that!
Yeah, OJ! Oh, and, yeah, sure, I suppose Banana can come along, too.
What you see is the game’s rendering of a small 50×32 image, blown up below:
Besides creating a world tile map, it also figures out where to place towers, chests, and the castle. The black spot is the hero’s spawn point. Red squares represent chests with health in them, and yellow ones represent chests with weapon upgrades.
The tile map will also help the AI figure where and how it can move. I need to do some trickery to make sure it deals with towers and castles correctly. They’re larger than a single 16×16 tile, but the AI should act like there is an impassable wall where it looks like there is one. Also, I need to make sure the hero knows how to get to the entrance of a tower or castle.
UPDATE:
Iteration 2 of 7 started with a little over 20 hours left in the compo.
I had some fig bars as a snack as the evening wore on.
My fantastic and amazing girlfriend made me a taco dinner, which was so delicious that my taste buds were fist-bumping each other.
I went to a party my friends were hosting so I could take a short break and get some much-needed social time, but I came back home shortly.
Looking at The Big (Cork) Board, I can see that I’m almost done with the first iteration of work.
Unfortunately, I still have 6 more big iterations to do, and a lot of it is doing AI path-finding and other AI things I’ve never done before.
And the deadline is looming.
I’m feeling pretty screwed.
Wait a minute. I think I have some Red Bull shots in my fridge…
I don’t drink caffeine usually, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Let’s roll.
What you see is a working UI. The hero’s status is running off of live data, which means that he’s at full health, has 10 lives left, and has no weapon.
Also, the number of resources you have is running on live data.
The world is rendering 16×16 tiles of grass and tree right now, but I don’t have real data for it yet. I’m going to have to create the world, and at first, I’m fine with it being a bit smaller just so I can test out the AI when I finally get to it.
We’re nearing the 24-hour mark, though. I feel like I’ve been working non-stop and have been quite focused, but so many things still need to be finished. I might not sleep well tonight. B-\
My game has a title screen with working GUI elements. And with a title screen comes a title.
It’s “Stop That Hero!”, the game where you throw everything you have at that pesky heroic figure bent on stopping you from doing whatever evil things you are doing. What are you doing, anyway? Kidnapping princesses? Destroying the world? Littering?
Ok, I have a window that opens and closes. It’s not that amazing, but it is a lot of boiler-plate code. I probably should have declared that I will be using some existing code to, you know, render a window.
Anyway, on to lunch. That’s right! It’s time for my award-winning peanut butter and pickle sandwich!
I also had carrots, broccoli, grapes, and a peach.
Also, my cats are dealing with my LD-induced schedule fairly well:
I took some time to figure out what features I’ll need to implement, what art and sound I’ll need to create, and what the complexity of it all will be, and I’ve come up with a backlog of 103 Agile story points.
Now, iterations are going to be kind of loosely based on “Whenever I get it done” as opposed to time-bound sprints. Still, having all of the work figured out up front helped me figure out that I was missing some features. For instance, an instruction screen! Also, I feel that the rest of LD will be much more focused. I’ll always have a piece of functionality assigned to me that I should be working on.
I started my day right: with a banana!
After reading for a bit, catching up on LD posts, and awarding some trophies, I finally made myself a full breakfast!
As you can see, I had scrambled eggs, buttered toast with some cinnamon sprinkled on top, and a glass of orange juice! I also have my unread “Artificial Intelligence for Games” book handy. I have a feeling I’m going to need it.
But first, a quick shower! Then I can get back to working on my game in earnest. In the meantime, I’ve realized that my hero is going to need to know how to fight an enemy. I had a couple of states as Fight or Flee, but what does Fight mean? I think I’ll change them to Chase/Evade, and Attack is a completely different state.
My plan: when the hero is chasing an enemy, it tries to get adjacent to it. Then it can attack. The attack occurs, damage is calculated, and then the hero has to wait a few moments before he can attack again. Hmm…maybe the hero should be put into another state after an attack: rest mode. This way, he can’t attack and flee immediately. He has to stick around long enough to be attacked himself.
Ok, Self, don’t panic. I’m sure the AI isn’t going to be THAT overwhelming.
Another mock up!
I still don’t have code, but I’ve decided that the individual squares/tiles of the game will be 16×16. It’s tiny, but that means the graphics don’t have to look terribly great. The hero is 8×11.
I wish I knew a better color scheme to use, though. Colorblind players, let me know if you can’t see anything because the greens, blues, and reds blend in together. B-(
My next task is to actually create real tiles and sprites, and then I can get started on some code to render it correctly.
But first, I think I’ll go to sleep. Good night, LD!
After thinking about ways to play as the hero and using enemies as weapons, I decided that I would make the player a villain who summons and sends out minions to attack the AI-controlled hero.
I created a mock-up of the UI:
You can see that the hero’s status is listed at the top, and the player can see how many resources are currently available, along with what minion types can be produced. They will have different costs and varying abilities. Or, at least I’m planning that they will now. When the deadline looms, I might have to limit the variety.
You can also see the world map. I didn’t spend too much time drawing out everything, but the basics are there. The hero is visible and moving around the world, searching for weapons, health, dungeons, and your castle. There will be obstacles, such as trees, mountains, and water. There will be towers/dungeons. Whenever a tower/dungeon is cleared, the hero gains access to new areas. Eventually, the hero will find your castle, and you’re done for.
Unless, of course, you can get your minions to do their job, hunt down the hero, and kill him first!
I mocked up a close-up of that first area as well:
The star is a weapon upgrade. The heart is health. The barrel/spindle thing is supposed to be the tower. Circles are obstacles. I moved the man around, imitating what I expect the AI should look like. In doing so, I realized that I needed to figure out what visibility the hero will have. It wouldn’t be right for him to make a direct line to the castle. He’d have to explore, so I think he’ll have a fog of war to deal with. He’ll normally be in exploration mode and can see a few squares around him in any direction. If he spots a location with a weapon, health, dungeon, or castle, he’ll switch to “Move me there in the fastest way possible” mode. If he encounters an enemy, he’ll go into Fight mode, unless he has low health, in which case he’ll be in Flee mode.
I also realized that I needed to decide what happens if he sees a target, starts moving toward it, but spots a new target on the way. Should he move to the new target? Should he ignore new targets? I decided he should have a queue of targets, and then I realized a prioritized queue would be best. If he sees a weapon upgrade, he’s going for it first. If he spots health, he’ll only go to it first if his health is low. If he has perfect health, he’ll ignore it. Towers/dungeons/castles will be the last targets he’ll go for. This way, if he has low health, sees a weapon upgrade and a tower, he will head towards the weapon. If he then sees a health upgrade, he’ll go to the health upgrade first, then go back to the weapon, then head to the tower.
But what should the player be doing? I want the player’s main action to be clicking on locations to place enemies for the hero. At the top of the screen, you’d click on the enemy you want to purchase, then you’d click on the world map to place the enemy. Obviously you shouldn’t be able to overwhelm the hero with enemies right away, so your limited resources would stop you. Also, do I want the player to be able to place enemies anywhere, or should they only be placed in specific areas/spawn points? If the player can place the enemies anywhere, then the hero is simply going to be fighting them right away. If, however, there are going to be specific spawn points, such as the tower/dungeons, then the enemies will need to explore and find the hero, and it gives more importance to the fact that the hero is not only getting to new areas but also eliminating your spawn points whenever a tower/dungeon is cleared.
With a few hours of prototyping, I think I understand my game design that much better.