Lately I’ve been working on a wiring system for the dungeon. I’ll give more details when it’s closer to being completed but it’s basically a way to turn on lights, spawn enemies, and trigger traps. The next few updates I’d like to address some of the AI adjustments. I am finally finished with the AI so I wanted to share how some of it works.
When you start going through a dungeon the easiest enemy is the lizard. As you progress through the dungeon that lizard will take on other forms. In this case, the lizard will have a shell and look a lot like a turtle. He takes less damage than the lizard, deals more damage than the lizard and when you hit him he will retreat into his shell and hide for a few seconds. Upon death it will drop a shell. These shells have magical properties and are important for completing the dungeon.
Here’s a picture of the new enemy going in and out of its shell:
Developer Update #16 - An Update on 0.3 and Beyond
There are 3 pieces of bad news I need to deliver today.
1. Multiplayer is no longer a planned feature of 1.0
2. My brother is no longer working on the game.
3. I took about 6 months off (July-January 1st)
MULTIPLAYER IS NO LONGER A PLANNED FEATURE FOR 1.0
The biggest piece of bad news is multiplayer. It was probably our most requested feature. We started from scratch in order to build multiplayer which slowed development a great deal. It was MUCH harder than we thought it would be. There are two reasons I’ve decided to drop multiplayer:
The first reason is time. Based on what I’ve seen so far, multiplayer more than doubles development time for me. Perhaps it’s because I’m not good at it and I’ll certainly accept some blame there. But multiplayer is complicated. It’s certainly NOT as simple as sending messages from client to server and back. You have to account for lag. You have to account for the possibility of cheating. Addressing these issues is tedious and slows down the development of ACTUAL gameplay. This fact frustrates me daily as a developer who is committed to finishing this project.
The second reason is that multiplayer is not critical for the core vision of the game. This game is about adventure, crafting, exploration, mining and world building. These are great as single player experiences. It would certainly be cool to do these things with friends. But, I think it’s more important that the core vision of this game is completed. If you disagree with this point you should know something: I’ve yet to see or hear of anyone playing Tile Miner using multiplayer. Some people have asked how they can set it up. But to my recollection I’ve not heard of anyone actually successfully setting up and playing a multiplayer game (other than my brother and I).
MY BROTHER IS NO LONGER WORKING ON THE GAME
A few months after the last release my brother pulled back from his time devoted to Tile Miner dramatically. Since then we’ve had many discussions about it and he’s come to the conclusion that it’s not worth it for him to continue development. He’s made this decision for two reasons:
The money side: So far we’ve sold a little over a thousand copies at $5 a pop, and all money gained has gone towards paying for graphics and software for development. Any sales in the future would be split between us. Considering our current sales though, that would mean he’d probably get less than $5 a month. He can’t afford to do that.
The time side: When we started this project we thought it would take a year. MAYBE two. We are at year 4 right now and arguably only halfway done with development. Starting from scratch to do multiplayer slowed us down dramatically. So there’s that. But I can’t argue with the fact that there’s a lot more features and content we have to add before this thing is done. When he signed on to do this, he was certainly not expected to make a 4 year commitment.
I TOOK ABOUT 6 MONTHS OFF
A little bit about me before I explain this: I have dabbled in software development most of my life. But my primary occupation since high school has been serving in various capacities at local churches. The primary money maker in my family is my wife. She’s been a software developer since college and continues to run a business with her brother that has supported our family well. It’s allowed me to have quite a bit of freedom as far as my occupation. When the development of Tile Miner started I had just joined a team that was going to start a brand new church in another town. It took us 3-4 long years to finally arrive but this past September we launched the church and things have been going great. This is why I took the past 6 months off. A brand new church requires a lot of work.
With all that being said, I’ve been back to the grind doing a lot of refactoring and getting back into the code. I’ll try to post more regularly. I plan on giving Tile Miner Tuesday’s Wednesdays and Thursdays. My last update had a comment under it that said “nice little game but development is too slow”. That’s fair. Development will be slow. I like making sure that the things I create have quality. That’s going to take time. I felt rushed to complete multiplayer and I won’t rush again. I’ve updated the early access information to reflect what I currently expect for the games release date and features. The game will be finished when it’s finished but my best guess is 2021. Obviously, that’s a long ways off! I do however expect there to be significant updates as time goes on. I’m looking forward to the dungeon update!
What’s important to me is 2 things:
1. The game quality.
2. That the game actually gets finished!
Thanks for reading!
Developer Update #15 - Lizard
Today I’ll introduce to you a new mob for 0.3. It’s the creature you’ll most likely run into first in the dungeon. It’s AI is very basic. It will make quick short movements in a random direction and then stand still. All of the mobs in the dungeon will get stronger as you progress in the dungeon. Here’s a zoomed in image of it:
Developer Update #14 - Slime AI
The slime AI is pretty standard. The slime will cycle between subtle bouncing and lunging randomly. It will keep doing this until it is within a certain range of the hero. Once in range the slime will begin chasing the hero. Finally, when within striking distance, the slime will charge up and then lunge quickly at the hero.
Tomorrow? A new Mob types AI.
Developer Update #13 - Bat AI
Hoping to make these updates a bit more “daily”. Yesterday I completed the bat AI.
To start, the bat has a new graphic where he is sleeping. He will not move unless you get closer to him. Once you’re within a certain radius, he’ll open his eyes indicating he can see you. Get a little closer and he’ll start flying around randomly. I’ve also made the bats a little bit faster so they are slightly more dangerous. If the bat gets far enough away that he can’t see you anymore he’ll slow down and go back to sleep. Simple, but far more interesting:)
Developer Update #12 - Worm AI
The worm AI has taken a lot longer than expected because I took a bunch of time to work on particle effects. Here’s the worm AI in a nutshell.
1. He will randomly move around for a random period of time (unless you get close enough to him, then he’ll charge you).
2. Once that period of time is up he will dig and hide underground. (There is a new dig animation along with particle effects).
3. While underground the worm will move around randomly again.
4. The worm will resurface with a separate animation.
This should make the worm a bit more dangerous. You could be in a house and have the door wide open and a worm could walk in without you realizing it. Then suddenly you have a fight on your hands that you were unprepared for:)
Next up? The bat.
Developer Update #11 - Cow AI
The cow AI in most ways is similar to the bee. The cow will randomly walk around and try to find tall grass to eat. Once it finds the grass it will eat it and the tall grass will be gone. If there’s a lot of cows there will likely not be a lot of tall grass after a while.:)
In contrast the the bee a cow is never agressive. If you attack the cow it will try to run away from you. For now the AI is as simple as this. Next up? The worm.
-Chris
Developer Update #10 - Bee AI
I’m changing the AI for all mobs in the game for the dungeon update. I want to make sure that each mob has it’s own unique behavior. I’m starting that process with the Bee.
Currently in Tile Miner the Bee is most likely the first “enemy” you’ll encounter in the game. As more releases come out I want the Bee to feel less like an “enemy” and more like a friendly mob. So for starters, the bee will no longer chase you unless you hit it. If you don’t bother the bee, the bee won’t bother you:) As it’s randomly roaming around the map it will be searching for flowers. When it finds a flower it will land on it and change its animation slightly. Then it will take off in search of another flower.
This may seem like a simple change but I think it’s important that each mob is unique. It’ll probably take me another week or two to complete the AI changes for every mob. I’ll keep you posted on details for each one!
Developer Update #9.5 - Pathfinding 2
Today I continued with pathfinding and had plenty of success! I still need to make some optimizations but everything appears to be working quite well. Here is a screenshot with some debugging turned on to show a few important things:
1. The very thin green line is the path the bee would have attempted to take in the current code.
2. The thick white path is where the bee will go now that pathfinding is implemented.
Tomorrow I’ll be doing some more optimizations!:) Looking forward to sharing more with you!
Developer Update #9 - Pathfinding
I’ve completed controller support for the 0.3 update and am now moving on to AI. Specifically I’m working on pathfinding. Currently every mob just moves in straight directions. If you place a tile between you and your enemy they’ll just keep running into the wall. A great strategy for escaping an enemy! Until now… It may take me a few days to fine tune the pathfinding algorithms and make them completely work in game but I had a good start today! Soon those enemies will be smart enough to find you no matter where you’re hiding! Since AI is not all that interesting I’ll try to post some screenshots in the days to come. Thanks for reading!
