Hi Philip, Well, all I can say is you are right. Good high quality artificial intelligence is something that has been sorely lacking in most audio games to date. Of course, how advanced the artificial intelligence needs to be is dependant on the style of game in question
For example, in Final Conflict I did my best to create a safisticated set of artificial intelligence for each of the enemy ships in the game. While the artificial intelligence in 1.x was decent that's something I plan on totally revising in 2.0 simply because the enemy attacks were uncoordinated, and it was too easy to basically split up the main battle group and pick them off one by one using superior firepower. If you could get the enemy battle group near one of your fully equipped and fully armed starbases the enemy fleet was toast. So even I admit while the artificial intelligence for that game was a good stab at a strategy game there were plenty of things that could have been done better. As for side-scrollers I admit to falling into the seak and destroy artificial intelligencetrap too. I suppose in a game like Mysteries of the Ancients where only one enemy is in a room at a time the walk left or walk right and attack player simple artificial intelligence works fine, but is boring like you say. I think what you are doing with the bores fighting eatch other, having a couple of monkeys fighting each other, etc is a much more realistic artificial intelligence system, and would be a lot more enjoyable over all. Something I haven't done yet myself, but I've been thinking of is having enemies have the ability to block as well as attack. For instance, the Zombie Warriors are equipped with swords and bronze shields. Logic would dictate they would be able to block swords, spear, and dagger attacks at least some of the time. That would make the fighting much more realistic and complex because the enemies would both block and attack when fighting. Using a bronze shield to deflect a pistol shot etc isn't out of the question either wwhich would make combat much more interesting. Cheers! On 3/17/11, Philip Bennefall <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Thomas, > > Ah, that is good. I misunderstood the message. > > Another topic which I think deserves some consideration and which I have > been spending a lot of time on myself, is artificial intelligence. In a lot > of sidescrollers the enemies are very generic. If player left, walk left. if > player right, walk right. If player within range, fire. This bores me, and > so I am really trying to step outside the box in this regard. My enemies > employ proper pathfinding, and make intelligent decisions based on their > surroundings and if they are being attacked etc. For instance, I had a > chimpanzee who got angry with me, not because I hurt him but because I fired > a shot near him and that made him take a strange dislike to me. So he chased > me across half the jungle, even up into a tree where I fortunately managed > to knock him down from the branch so that he went crashing onto the ground. > After that, he got frightened and ran away from me. This sort of thing is as > far from Q9 as you can get, where the enemies just move towards the player > and attack. The creatures in my jungle actually interact with each other as > well, not just with the player. It is particularly enjoyable listening to > two boars fighting it out, or hearing a chimpanzee knock a little monkey > down from a branch 16 feet up in the air. > > What I am trying to say is that AI really made a difference in the case of > my game. A lot of people won't notice all the stuff I have spent time on, > but the over-all feel of the characters is a lot more realistic one than the > dumb "search and destroy" mentality that is implemented for the enemies in > other similar games. What are your thoughts on this? > > Kind regards, > > Philip Bennefall --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
