8 JAN 2022
This week was really fun and challenging because I started integrating the shield fighters and bombers into the new AI system. The AI takes into consideration not only where the player currently is, but where they are projected to be! So if you destroy an enemy on the left side of the screen, then the next enemy is quite likely going to launch on the left side of the screen .
I also made tweaks to how difficulty is raised/lowered. Initially I was going to have the speed adjust in real-time, but after much thought and testing, I decided that this was a bit too arbitrary and didn’t give the player enough warning. So now enemies will only adjust their speed on their next iteration.
Another important change was this: Before, if you stunned an enemy, that stunned enemy would come back around for another pass. This really didn’t make any sense — why would a crippled ship bother to make another attack run? So now ships only make one attack run — whether they survive or not — and then reinforcement come in after them (based off the AI system).
In the future I’ll be testing a “Threat Level” system to calculate how “difficult” the game is it any given moment. The way I have it envisioned, it reminds me a little of the “Wanted” system from the Grand Theft Auto games.
Ultimately this “Threat Level” system will be integrated into the AI to aid in determining which enemy attacks next. Is the player ship wounded? Launch a weaker enemy. Is the p layer untouched? Launch a tougher one.
In other news, I forgot to mention earlier that I finished listening to all 26 episodes of the Game Design Dojo podcast. VERY informative even though the material is a little dated. A new podcast series I started listening to is “Level Design Lobby”.
Quote of the Week:
“Difficulty is what wakes up the genius.” — Nassim Taleb
Thanks for reading and have a great rest of your week!