#even if i don't play them they're an interesting AI enemy to be against
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There needs to be more games where I can play as an all-consuming hive mind accumulating and hoarding everything I can
Oddly enough the two games I feel do this best are Stellaris (ravenous swarm hive mind devouring the entire galaxy) and Factorio (mechanical instead of biological, consuming resources exponentially in a vast glorious machine network)
#every time i play stellaris i make a super overpowered ravenous swarm hive mind#even if i don't play them they're an interesting AI enemy to be against#max habitability and pop growth to spread across the stars#and I'm midway through a factorio space exploration game#slower but I'm spreading my machines across worlds and moons and asteroids#anyway what was i saying.#factorio#stellaris
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Possibly odd question, I'm trying to prepare to write my undergraduate thesis next year and I'm going to do it on creating battle AIs. Is there any chance I could possibly ask about how the battle system AI in 'in stars and time' works? Totally okay if not or if you're busy!
I'm just especially interested in the design decisions that go behind how especially smaller games handle enemies and creat fun/well weighted battles :D
(all the screencaps will be in JPN because I am currently working on the JPN version ok!!!)
i would love to talk about battle AI and this definitely didn't turn into a "this is how I think about random enemies for In Stars and Time which you should wishlist and play the demo of" just deal with it ok
ok so first I gotta explain how RPGMaker's AI works.
You can give skills to enemies, and you can tell them 1. Conditions, aka when to do a certain skill (always? only on certain turns? only if under a certain state? only if under 50%HP?) and 2. Ratings, aka how high that skill is on the action list.
So for example, this is a Paper Tristesse's attack patterns:
Paper Tristesse's [Paper] attack (which attacks only one target) is set to Always, so they'll always have the possibility to do this attack. [Paper (All)] (which targets the whole party) will be activated only if Tristesse's HP is under 50%, and [Does Something] (which actually just... gives a line of dialogue and nothing else) also always has the possibility to happen. BUT those Rating numbers are different- the higher the number, the more likely that skill is to be activated. So [Paper] happens pretty often, [Paper (All)] less often, and only if Tristesse's HP is under 50%, and [Does Something] is even less likely to happen than both of those.
Paper Tristesse doesn't have a whole lot of attacks, because it's easier for the player so they can keep track of what attacks the enemy has, and it's easier for me. So I don't have. To figure out a whole damn complicated AI when this works great (some other enemies have very long lists of patterns but they're spoilers ok!!!)
(sidenote: [Does Something] is here to give a tiny bit of worldbuilding (how does the Tristesse act?) and to make the enemy skip a turn, giving the player some room to breathe and plan. So sometimes instead of attacking Tristesse goes "(Tristesse is distracted.)" I'm being so nice to players)
This simple pattern of 3 attacks is used by enemies that my producer calls "Goomba enemies", which are random encounters that are supposed to be very simple and not time intensive for the player! For the demo, Tristesse enemies are Goombas, and the triplets (seen below)/Rancoeur+Amertume encounters are made to be slightly harder and ask you to think a lil bit.
(oooh what's the difference between those three lil ladies?????)
The way I'm thinking about random enemies is, they should all teach the player something. Basic Tristesse enemies are here to teach you about the basics of Rock Paper Scissors and have pretty low stakes (just one weak enemy to focus on! Not a lot of attacks to keep track of!), the triplets are here to teach you that HEY WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THOSE THREE SEEMINGLY IDENTICAL ENEMIES DO YOU GET WHAT YOU SHOULD LOOK AT YET (it's their hands, because they do different hand signs depending on their RPS type), and Rancoeur+Amertume are here to teach you about enemies with different goals/patterns (Rancoeur buffs, Amertume attacks), and also that enemies can buff themselves, and also about player priorities to a certain extent- which one to focus on first??? And learning those things are useful against bosses and midbosses!
tldr: rpgmaker's AI is pretty simple and so my enemy AI is also pretty simple but it works well so it's perfect. for me ✨
#in stars and time#tutorial#reference#game dev#indie game#ask tag#game development#this has been A WEEK so thank you for your patience#long post#usual 'i hope that helped' disclaimer
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Okay this is me shouting into the void to my 3 active followers on this blog but I need to get this off my chest with veilguard coming.
As a long time bioware fan I am well aware of their shortcomings. They lay people off. They change leadership and directions a lot. They have stupid ass marketing decisions. They've had multiple flop releases in a row. Some of their latest veilguard bundles dont even include the actual game in them. I KNOW all of these and I am still fine with playing their game and I am so sick of having to defend them against useless critique that won't get anywhere or are flat out baseless and wrong.
You don't wanna support them? You think the old bioware is dead and this is just EA beating a dead horse? Fine. You can just stay away from them and don't worry about a thing at all. Being mad and angry at something you don't care is only hurting you and ends up being a waste of energy on your part. At least stay mad at them for the right reasons if you even want to be a hater, I get it.
It's been 10 years since the last game and I just wanna enjoy it in peace. I wanna gush about the weak plot lines they're gonna write and wax poetics about the next potentially one dimensional love interest I will go after. I want to talk nonstop about the meh enemy AI that will be in the game and how some combos just flat out don't work and I wanna do all these without sounding like I should be ashamed to be enjoying a video game, or that I have to defend my enjoyment each time I mention it to others.
#i know this wont get anywhere#as i said im just so frustrated with some of my friends#i get that theyre critical! just dont go after my ass about this and let me freak out in peace!#just ignore me yall
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oh i am very curious which yttd routes did you play first :O? (mine was alice/shin <- this was literally because i was hyperfixated on alice + i was playing it with my friend who was hyperfixated on shin.)
oho... i believe my first route was true logic! (reko + shin) -- i'd pushed the fake reko, because my view on the whole 'doll v. human' thing is. well. humans will always be preferable if they're still alive, though even after death it's a shaky trail to follow. of course, while alive they can still be manipulated & gaslit into certain things, but the AIs can be changed on a very fundamental level with the intention of deceiving someone they care for (whether they mean to or not; mishima, for example, whose values weren't necessarily changed, but just shifted to see those he would've cared for as enemies), and the idea of them being so easily reset - to me - makes it more difficult to view anything you do with them as permanent. which, while that may be something worthwhile for some (sara w ytts, hiyori w shin ai...), i find scarcity to be something very important & i just hate the idea of desecrating who someone was after death. what you see as the ai will often have a very tangible effect on how you perceive the person post-mortem as well, which isn't fair to you or them, regardless of how genuine they believe they're being.
or, well. that's the gist of my thoughts on it x']
in any case! i do wish i could've kept alice alive, but this was a 'no resets' run for me & i still wouldn't have changed my answer here... sorry reko ai.
as for shin, i chose him primarily because my sister (kid) really enjoys his character & i was very intrigued in seeing where he'd go once pushed further than this. i felt terrible killing kanna for this, & realized during her death (i. started crying also <3) that if i were in this situation that i'd never be able to work w someone who enabled kanna's self-sacrificial nature. which shin evidently echoed, rendering any logic behind the choice null, ironically because i failed to take into account the emotional attachment between them all.
& of course the influence this has on ch3-1... where sara had very obviously sacrificed dolls for her allies before, it just makes it tasty...
however! as for my current routes, i think i favor true emotion (alice + kanna) -- i really wanted to know more abt alice before he died & i was surprised it was even an option so early on. i also enjoyed seeing alice getting after gashu outright + i think he deserved to have that personal chance in getting after hiyori again... even if the realization he's become a 'real murderer' (he had still pushed hiyori w intent to kill, you know...) is held against him here.
and, in terms of character development, upon reflection: i really do think i'm more interested in seeing kanna truly overcome that desire to push herself aside for others' benefit... it'd be so much more fulfilling to me, with what i'm searching out, in a game like this where pushing forward really is the only choice you can make...!!
as for both, they don't get the focus i wish they could've in ch3-1, but i nonetheless find it a more interesting route going forward, even if i still don't agree w the choice made to keep alice alive x'] the implications for sara's character in either route are really fun to consider :D
#THANK YOUUU <3 but yeah... regardless of the route i DO think there are interesting ways to go with it#but i feel like the logic route is much more cynical because it - as shown in ytd - inherently dismisses the emotions of everyone involved#it's that quote that marco an.morphs had abt ruthlessness. you know? it's terrible for sara & for shin; and it's done because of kanna's#request rather than to fulfill her desire to be useful to people -- which could honestly be done better if she stayed alive. and so on#BUT YEAH... it's interesting how many people choose shin first... fun to seee; i love how the main games have gone <3#they always make it so i care for the bastard i said i wouldn't 😭 (kai. shin. qtaro briefly disliked until i realized his actual intent#irt forcing the three to make statements that can prove themselves so they Won't be targeted on other aspects)#ask#mutuals#locomotivefan#yttdposting
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Review Blurbs: Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach - Ruin DLC
General:
-For one, huge props to the devs for this DLC; you can definitely tell they looked at community feedback and reception from SB and not only polished the game a lot more, but also added in stuff they knew the players would like (ex. the wet floor sign bots have an actual purpose in the game + lore implications, Glamrock Bonnie official appearance and backstory regarding Monty, the Map Bot callback with the Mask Bot, etc)
-They also returned to their roots with making Ruin feel more horror-based than SB was. SB wasn't bad for not being as horror-based, but I know a lot of FNAF fans felt disappointed with the lack of horror considering FNAF is not only a horror franchise, but was a huge part of the indie horror game scene. They upped the atmosphere and it payed off pretty well
-Cassie was a great character, her sassy attitude felt very natural and fun, and unlike most horror video game protags she actually questioned the weird shit happening around her like a normal person would. Plus her backstory with Gregory was brief but gave us plenty to work with, I feel like the two have great matching personalities and it makes so much sense why they're friends
-Somehow they managed to make the animatronics even greasier than in SB post-pizzaplex fire. Chica having a garbage bag hanging out of her gut when she kills you in the bathroom was haunting, I loved it and I want more (also Monty physically should not be able to function)
-Ok the devs definitely looked at community fan works cause fucking Eclipse was canonized like I can't believe the crazy bastards did it lmao. I'm very curios about those implications cause I don't think Sun and Moon were ever Eclipse before, they would shift around on duty and the virus in SB is what made Moon go haywire, but somehow we made the two merge entirely and that caused the virus to leave them? And become a secret third option called Eclipse?? I'd love to know what that whole thing was about
-SB was completely different from how the previous FNAF games were and some felt like it was following the new indie horror mold and abandoning the iconic FNAF style, so it was nice seeing the camera and puzzle system implementation; though its still a first-person survival game, the new system made it feel more like classic FNAF
-The V.A.N.N.I. system was interesting, from a lore standpoint I think its a bit silly that a pizzaplex would have all this extremely advanced AI technology (SB was kind of a disaster as much as I loved it) but the mechanic was fascinating; I like how they took a little part of SB (Rocky's eyes letting you see through walls) and sort of expanded on that to make it a fun play feature in the DLC (though the potential to miss things when you're on either V.A.N.N.I. or Real World mode does stress me out but that's just me lmao)
-Love how it said "Security Node Breached" when you completed the code breaks. Cause Security Breach. Haha. Anyways.
-That one part where you're going down a ladder and the security bot is dead right in front of you was fantastic and deserves its own spot here
-I can't believe the game made the most difficult and tense enemy in the game the mini-DJs but didn't show us the actual DJMM. This is a crime against me specifically.
-The Security AI was a great character to force the player to be vigilant and put pressure on them when doing the node breaks, makes it so you can't just stay in AI Mode to avoid the animatronics
-Everything with Roxy was 10/10. Her reaction to Cassie not being Gregory and immediately going into human-companion mode, her still being pissed as fuck at Gregory and wanting her eyes back (which was hilarious btw), her remembering Cassie's birthday during that scene and protecting her from the Mimic... it does beg the question though of how exactly Roxy is unaffected by the virus where Monty and Chica weren't, cause even in SB she showed a level of sentience that Chica and Monty didn't. Questions questions...
-Headless stomach-mouth Freddy was not the boss fight I was expecting but damn did it slay, like I said they upped the spookiness and it payed off
-Gregory helping us escape the Mimic underground but then killing us "so they wouldn't get tracked" is confusing, I think that was the Mimic talking to us still and also the one killing us in the elevator, but does that mean we never talked to the real Gregory? Was there a point where we talk to the real one? Does it depend on the ending? God I have so many questions
Criticisms:
-I watched one letsplay so this might not be a thing on other people's runs but the enemies (animatronics and the Security AI) didn't really seem like threats. The game AI might've been jank cause it was pretty easy to get past their pathfinding, and it took a long time of being "caught" by the Security AI for you to actually die. The game felt like it had no stakes which decreased the intensity (they needed better pathfinding to chase the player around more consistently, and the Security needed to be more difficult to avoid/quicker to kill the player)
-I know its a DLC so its gonna be shorter but the sections went by way too quickly, I don't know if that was intentional or if the devs were on a time crunch but it felt hard to get immersed in the chase scenes cause of how fast they went by. I think one section had a jumpscare and then a chase scene that lasted 20 seconds before it was over, they needed to give more time dedicated to chase scenes and the jumpscares that start them (the Monty one at the beginning was great for example)
-Cassie's voice didn't always feel suited to the scene, they gave her a bit of a whiner/impatient voice which is fine, but even people with her fed-up attitude will have moments of fear, sadness, anger, and I think Cassie's VA needed more voice direction cause in moments when she should've sounded terrified, it sounded like she hit an annoying inconvenience rather a life threatening situation (she needed more range basically)
-How did Roxy come back when we deactivated her? Cassie essentially just hit the power down button so I know she wasn't dead but how did she push her own power button back on? Someone else would have had to do it for her to save Cassie. If I'm missing something then criticism rescinded but if not, its a loophole
Final Thoughts:
The game was less lore-heavy and character interaction-driven than SB, so the pitfalls of the gameplay were a bit glaring. Regardless, it had many shining moments and the devs really did listen to the community which is always much appreciated and shows care for the audience. Ruin is a solid horror game to play and I recommend it for anyone into FPS games and FNAF.
#review blurbs#five nights at freddy's#fnaf#five nights at freddy's security breach#fnaf security breach#fnaf sb#fnaf ruin#fnaf ruin dlc#fnaf ruin spoilers
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Ah yes, an opportunity to show my silly sad fella:
(Art is old WAAAY before I had to leave Instagram, hencee the watermark being my user there)
This lil guy is Faker_Test.zip, a enemy test for frontiers! originally his concept was a corrupted coco, but one corrupted so badly, that they don't even remember what happened, they're just lost in anger, and once Sage entered the cyberspace their only mission was to watch Sonic & friends fight, or the player in this case, so eventually Faker could turn into a glitchy version of sonic, and replicate many things the very player does, even guessing the player's moves to be quite the small, yet dangerous Enemy.
.. Sadly, he was scratched, and the team just left models, concept art, code and the very ai Faker uses, in a .zip file on Frontiers.
Eventually, one of them young teens with such a love of breaking games and seeing whatever leftovers the team made, discovered Faker's file, unzipped him and, once he noticed his purpose.. he put it in his game.
After some weeks of playing and messing with Faker's ability to learn, he discovered something a bit somber, Faker's files weren't attached totally to Frontiers so, the little fellow could just go in and out if he pleased, thankfully Faker didn't know that..
until that moment.
Faker never was finished
Faker never was chained to the game since, the team never finished his code
Faker only knew this person behind the screen, he had to learn from them and, give them a challenge.
and so he learned to escape, with no back ups, with nothing more than a note left on the teen's computer
"Thanks for freeing me, and playing with me."
After a while being in a .zip, seeing how everyone plays and plays and.. enjoys this other enemies you never got to be part of, it's kind of sad. You know deep care and excitement was put into your creation.. yet even your own creator doesn't question the orders to, hide you. A big grief was already destined to be born in such a naive yet smart mind made out of code.. Faker just wanted to accomplish his destiny but, even that teenager that awakened him reacted badly their first interactions.. if he couldn't become a lovable character or enemy, what could he be?
And that's when, traveling within many platforms to sink more in his grief and pain and rage, he saw quite the interesting recommendation.
Sonic.exe, a creepy, menacing fictional being.. maybe they were fictional or maybe not? his ai couldn't really catch a grasp of it.. but people loved it. They loved the aggressiveness, the blood, and these egocentric beings only made to be edgy creepy drawings of Sonic. Of course
If he couldn't be lovable being kind, might as well, even against his own beliefs, become lovable being someone's biggest fear.
(Sorry for taking this as a whole yapping trigger I'm so autistic for my own little silly goofballs )_!$(!_)
I want to see everyone's EXEs, grimdarm / creepypasta OCs, etc., doesn't matter what franchise!! I wanna see your spooky lil' fellas, even if they're just silly guys.
#someone sedate me#i yap too much#i yap way more than yall should tolertae omfg sorry#sonic.exe#sonic.exe oc#exe#exe community#idk if this counts as a trollpasta but anyways#he's traumatized omg
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Today, I beat River City Ransom for NES. It's my favorite beat-em-up on the NES so it's definitely not my first time. At first I played with a patch that restored Japanese names and graphics, but it was causing annoying color hiccups so i just stuck with the vanilla USA version, interestingly, my character's Japanese name remained in place instead of reverting to the American name, Alex.
The game is a pretty linear side scrolling beat em up. There is only one instance of mandatory backtracking ( but it's a bit of a doozy ), the hook is that they added RPG elements. You get money from your fallen foes, and with it you buy items that will boost your stats and some will even teach you new abilities. The game would be very short without the grind needed to power up. You can make it to the final area fairly quickly, but you cannot enter without defeating all of the game's boss characters, and you will get destroyed if you face them without powering up ( though you can exploit the AI pretty bad in some areas ), it's like the first Dragon Warrior in that way, short game fluffed up by grinding ( and in DW's case, learning where to find the trinkets ), one more feature in common with Dragon Warrior is that death costs you money... so play smart an run away if you're low on health, and carry healing items.
The history of this series and it's localization choices is pretty long and interesting, and I could never cover it all without it overtaking this post, my best summary is that it's the sequel to the Japanese version of Renegade, with the american version of Renegade going on to have it's own american sequel, but also inspiring the creation of Double Dragon, River city ransom would have a billion sports and fighting spinoffs, eventually the localized version of the game got a sequel in 2017, while japanese games continue coming out, and now Wayforward helming the series starring female characters and various characters from Technos Japan making some kind of cinematic universe... that's my best guess, as I've only played River City Ransom, and a few Double Dragon games so far. It's a wild trip and I skipped over a lot.
Now, would I recommend this game to people? Well, only people who are really enthusiastic about the NES. If you don't adore the NES and specifically want NES games to play, skip this one... instead, check out the Gameboy Advance Remake, River City Ransom EX. The game was remade in 16 bits and given a lot of extra features, although one wouldn't know it from just playing. There is a hidden code to make your own character, they gave the final boss pyschic powers to make him more challenging than his underlings, and there's now a hidden "reputation" stat. I don't know how to raise reputation, but it lowers if you run away from a fight or hit an enemy while they're running away or on the ground. The reputation system can trigger events where you recruit AI controlled characters as partners, and can give you an extra boss battle against Kunio's friend Rikki if your reputation falls low enough. There's also new moves to spice up combat. They released this remake with absolute trash box art, it's like they remade the NES box art using clip art, making it seem like shovelware that most people would ignore, dooming this game in the USA, but So if you wanna play the best version of River City Ransom, play the EX version for Gameboy Advance.
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