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[Foamy]

You can get it here: Link

I've been working on this for ages, and the larger game for over a year now. Mostly completely silently while we prepared. Hunter's Moon is not as far along as I feel it should be before reveal, but the testbed needs exposure and so HM has to be there too. The main push of development is still to come where most of it will be completelt overhauled. That time is only a week or so from starting.

Here's the description of the testbed:

The plan for this game was to develop a greatly simplified version of the Hunter's Moon (see website for details) hunting mechanics that didn't depend on any of the main game features, and that put the focus on the AI.

The first reason for the testbed is to act as a research project for my final year of university by analysing the merits of training a complex Multi-Agent System with a Genetic Algorithm rather than doing it manually, the second reason is to aid the development of Hunter's Moon.

The data for analysis is provided by a user study at the end of each play-through of the game.

The game will randomly pick an AI configuration at the start of each game (either manually tuned, or computer tuned), that adjusts the behaviour of the wolves. Both attempt to maximise the fun of the game.

After this project is concluded more AI development will be done to make it do everything HM requires and to flesh it out, but the basic foundation is here.


Details on the big game, Hunter's Moon, can be found here: Link

It's based on this ancient DF mod idea: Here


Feedback and survey responses are very much appreciated.

[darkflagrance]

It looks like most of the work has been in melee combat and injury simulation. Can you shed more light about AI goals and behavior? I find it hard to believe that you can offer an AI experience to match the variety of scenarios you plan to offer in your prototype build. However, hunting a cunning and brutal beast who has to be outsmarted and adapts to my tactics seems to be part of the final experience you plan to offer.

Also, you have "rouge-like" appearing in your blog post.

[Foamy]

Which scenarios are you referring too?

The AI at the moment is only considering the pure hunting case, although the architecture would support several others without heavy modification. The prototype build will only be the hunting scenario, additional ones will come in as development continues. If we need to then we'll probably implement a hybrid AI system, using the current Multi-Agent System idea in combination with more traditional methods.

Adapting to individual tactics is something we really want to add in future, that's going to have to wait a while though. Also, there's huge potential, and few obstacles, to training the AI on a wider scale. If it can learn from one person, then if you add a little internet access you can learn from thousands.

Typo fixed, good spot.

[darkflagrance]

Nevermind, I'm reading your AI testbed page and it has the information I was looking for. I had assumed it was simply the download page.

[NRDL]

PTW

[Foamy]

Analysis of results is tomorrow; I have a reasonable number of results but not as many as hoped. Any additional surveys would be really useful. No need for extra comments in them either.

Thanks for all the help so far. I think this study is going to be very valuable for the future.

[kulik]

This looks great, I'm concerned however with the fancy graphics, I've heard that these things are very demanding time wise.

[Foamy]

That certainly used to be true before Unity, and to a lesser extent other engines, changed it. Of course for the full game we're going to need at least one full time 3D artist, but that's post kickstarter. Right now I'm just putting a bit of money into buying from the asset store to give us the 3D art we need. We do have one part time 3D artist to do the few little bits we need custom made before the big KS release.

So things like the environment, buildings, animations, and a few weapons, are all bought assets. We have one custom sword at the moment, with a complete new human model in progress, with a similar werewolf model coming after that. Beyond those we just need a couple smaller bits, like a musket bayonet and we should be sorted for KS. After that we'll be able to bring on at least one experienced full time 3D artist to build what we'll need for the full game.

The main features of HM are all code based, basically the combat engine, event viewer, AI, etc. That's why we have two full time coders to one part time 3D artist.

[Foamy]

I just posted an update with screenshots of the new swingengine: here.

Not sure if people want me updating here regularly (may get tedious for us both), the easiest way to stay up to date is follow the dev log, but I can post any major news here if that'll be easier.

[Foamy]

Just released the combat testbed: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=143506.new#new

[Squeegy]

You say 'we,' is that a royal we or are there others involved in this project?

[Foamy]

Coding is pretty much just me, but I'm working with a 3D artist who's done various work. There's also a collection of people who have been very involved with the early design processes. There's also a potential candidate for a second developer who I'm working with at the moment.

So it's a small "we", but certainly not an "I".