trying to do low poly, made a space suit / haz-mat looking character. I think it is 204 polygons.  next is to try and animate it

FEAR has a good approach to do AI that has goals and planning, but involves ab uninviting workflow requiring a lot of heavy setup by level designers, but then again the process is dated compared to the types of tech there is now for pathing and stuff like that.  
Create navigation mesh by hand, bind objects to individual polygons for different actions (crawling under shelves, jumping through windows, hopping cover, opening doors) then individually place every possible cover point, tune the FOV of each cover point, adjust three separate radius settings on each cover point, set the type of cover animation to play, place all the behavior nodes for patrol, guard, ambush, etc.. place each AI... edit all their individual settings...  lots of slow rework and tuning to get combats to work well.
 IMO it isn't exactly AI in the way many of us would like to think, not as simple as just dropping some enemies into an environment and letting them figure stuff out.

Bungies AI, at least up to Halo 3 is a lot simpler in comparison but they have a strong sense of having behaviors that are identifiable and work with the different enemy types... at the basics Halo AI is almost as simple as either run towards Player or run away from Player. (ok maybe exaggerating a little bit )

I don't think AI makes or breaks a game.. it really just comes down to the behaviors the player sees and hears, it doesn't need to be real amazing intelligence, just good design decisions when building all that stuff. Especially if it comes together into an experience that can be replayed many different ways with different outcomes.  (not COD whackamole or funneled banzai charges for example)

A shooter that you had to look at the character to estimate your health and shoot until you find out you need to reload. Something a little more awesome.

If you follow through on this one, I'd suggest a method of making it... not easier to play, but easier to tell. More blood, broken bones, etc.

That was the plan. Harder to get through (though not IWBTG-difficult) and if the twerps I deal with want realistic, realistic is what they'll get.

What about the addition of variable places to get hit at, like an imemdiate death if in the chest or gradual health loss and a slower speed if it's taken in the legs? No, the character does not heal as fast as modern FPS games have it. Ten minutes to heal completely if at one hitpoint remaining, for example. The size of the player character is relatively small, but will equal the chance of a fatal hit to balance it out. Tiny tiny, oh so tiny.

for the reloading you could try subtle queues such as changing the way the weapon is held slightly for each round fired, so there is a connection between how your FPS-HANDS hold the weapon and how much ammo is weighing it down.

X-TREME-HARD FPS game with auto-saves that only kick off automatically whenever the game determines that the current situation is possible to get through without dying.

(my reasoning is, I like games like STALKER where you can get yourself fucked by hitting the autosave key too often-- then it is really fun and rewarding actually getting out of those situations even if it takes you lots of crazy attempts, they are the most memorable moments!)

Point, Line and Plane

that was one of the most clearly beneficial fundamentals I learned, having to do hundreds and hundreds of thumbnail sketches exploring all types of compositions for expressing different concepts/etc..  gradually bringing in new rules or constraints (like using perspective, or using only lines to create plane, etc).

make the explosions create clouds that just drift up and become part of the background

great thread 
Once I start dealing with PG in level design I've been planning/dreaming to create various curves for specifics about a desired experience I want a level to have, that when put together can be considered pacing or even a reward loop. I'd then referring back to that when serving up the content.. a bit like what GILBERT Timmy brings up, I will already know how I want enemies and mechanics to work, so I will be able to build the procedural system around that. 
Level design in that case (as i see it) would become more about creating curves (or graphs) for various factors of a level, showing how I want to pace everything, it could even get down to controlling desired elevation changes or the average sum of turns the player is having to make X minutes..  controlling the introduction of enemies and items based on the player's performance and needs.
I guess I look at it as less of a completely random generation, and more of allowing the game to build out the experience and even scale it to the Player, while also have numerous experiences without having to do all the heavy hand crafting of each one. 

I absolutely love threads like this.  It has been my experience that nearly all NA games get horrendous box art compared to the original JPN art.  It makes me wonder if a lot of the original covers for games carried the vision and intent of the game directly from the creators, and not simply passed off to marketing to decide what is right.

BTW, I thought Fragile was a really enjoyable game... the japan cover is pretty much the same as the US one...

I also love the old covers and fliers done in the airbrushed/painted style that some of you guyz are saying is terrible, I think it would be truly great if games could be made which in artistic styles similar to ones seen in older video game covers.. it is really interesting looking back at them, to see how the vision of a game is portrayed through mostly traditional means and then what it looks like within the capabilities of the hardware.

I mean for example, imagine getting some shader techniques that emulate the exact look in realtime 3d??   It would look much better/unique than the kind of "standard" normal mapping + glossy specular that is seen so often...

sorry for getting off topic  
(btw these are good)






even stuff like this, as cheesy or cliched as it may seem, would be pretty badass if the style was carried over and replicated with modern realtime techiques, and the general feeling embraced for any game design decisions...  I guess the asme thing goes for a lot of scifi book covers or comic book covers

Instead of bitching about brown corridor shooters I am gonna try and explain them.

I think 3D titles have a tough time nowadays.  If you want to get everything looking good, and meet player expectations, you have to spend a shitload on textures, and making everything brown/grey with dark lighting or whatever is one way of reusing assets seamlessly.  Other ways of doing it: desert settings, snow settings, city settings, impressive animated skyboxes you never get to go visit, making everything hyper-saturated and glowy.
Reason why so many enemies have glowy-eyed gas masks: Because models are so detailed now, you can't give them faces so much or people will really notice how the assets are being reused.

 
well said

I admit though, I do miss the more arcade-style treatments of enemies where you do see the same types of enemies showing up constantly in groups with just different palettes, with distinct behaviors that aren't scripted etc... I'd love to play/make current-FPS games that embrace that approach to the visuals and design of things, probably would want to even throw in generated content too in some ways.. probably more of a niche thing.

I think that we will see a little more of that though as publishers get sick of having games get traded in as used more and more... they want longer disc retention among consumers, I think it is going to ultimately mean getting smarter about content and design to support it..rather than just trying to pump out DLC or hope that all their hidden items keep people hooked with reason to come back...  There is going to be less and less reason for them to make these one-time beautifully elaborate environments if the Player is only ever going to run through them once the majority of the time. So either more in the design of games to get players navigating the space multiple ways or more ways to create numerous, interesting spaces easily from smaller sets of content. 
ramble. 

HAWKEN 

this looks cool, I was readin your blargs, but I just don't agree with the decision to go small and chunky with the character sprite- I understand some of the reasoning, but having a character all flailing about and slinking along toting a giant laser cannon could look really cool with the exaggerated legs/arms for postures and stuff. 
I think it could work, I mean, who says the whole sprites gotta be the hit box, there are no rules about that, what if it was just the head only?..what if any nearby shot caused the character to play a quick flinch-outta-the-way animation.. 
I think allowing for the exaggerated limbs will let you be a lot more expressive with the animation if you wanted!

I've been unmotivated/burntout/tired when thinking about starting a new game project, so instead I just opened up an old EGP entry I never finished and started experimenting with it again:

That mikey addon looks like it could potentially be a low-cost initial step in the right direction, I'm not sure what format the ipod records in and if it displays the levels so you can adjust the input and avoid clipping.  

If the only form of input level control you have is the 3-switch gain control on that mic then you will likely run into trouble.. it is a lot better if you've got an analog dial that you can fine tune as you monitor the sound or watch the levels- also keeping in mind being able to quickly adjust as needed.
You'd definitely want some form of windscreen to put over the mic if used in the wind.

See if you can find recorded samples using mikey, I don't know much about it.

I do field recording of the exact things you've described (even the hand rails bit, they make a crazy deep hum that you can pick up when close to them), I ended up getting a Tascam DR-1 a couple years ago, I haven't purchased any additional mics to use with it yet, the stereo mics that are built in work great, I did get a windscreen too which helps cut down on wind interfering and clipping, I could invest in a better one though, wind still interferes with the mics.
Overall it works great for my needs, I researched portable recorders for a while, was originally going to go with the Zoom brand since it was cheap but the Tascam seemed way better for the price (less than 200$)...and now I'm pretty loyal to Tascam, their products work great.

My main issue with the DR-1, and it likely is for anything where the mics are built in, is that they can potentially pick up noise from handling the unit while recording, like rubbing your fingers across the plastic housing, vibration, etc.. it isn't a huge problem but just something you become acutely aware of avoiding when recording.   If I were using an external mic I wouldn't really have trouble with that.


The other good thing about getting a dedicated portable recorder is most of them support phantom power so you can use high-end powered mics, along with the usual stereo line in, instrument cables etc.. so you really can use them for a multitude of recording or sampling purposes.


As far as techniques, I like using headphones with it as well for monitoring (honestly you could just use the ipod earbuds), actually can the ipod/iphone do live monitoring while recording, and does it show the audio levels and have a gain/input control?  Those things are most important IMO, it sucks recording blind and then later listening to it and realizing everything is extremely quiet or distorted from clipping/peaking the whole time. Being able to see the levels and fine tune them helps so you don't have to rely on monitoring all the time.
Most of the field recording I've done has involved urban exploration, I used to photograph places but now I spend more time recording audio from places like that. I guess I'm usually stationary, just because walking through areas that aren't extremely loud creates unwanted footstep sounds.. A lot of the time I keep the unit armed to record and just push the record button to punch in and then punch out for short foley-type sounds, by doing that it keeps adding to the same wave file... so for example you can have a file of just metal barrel hits without much excessive gaps of silence taking up space.

Overall my experience has just been experimenting, I didn't have any recording experience prior to getting the portable recorder..  the loudest thing I've recorded is freight trains, by laying the recorder next to the rail as the train is going by, and then the opposite end of things has been empty abandoned places where you mostly just have an ambient drone of other sounds entering the space. The most fun thing was recording objects from piles of scrap metal, scraping metal together and stuff, slowed down it sounds like roaring beasts.

anyway, yeah... field recording is extremely fun, if you can find examples of audio recorded from that Mikey mic and reviews seem good, it seems like a quick low-cost way to be better equipped for sure, but it definitely doesn't have the same sort of features as a dedicated recorder would have.
 If you are interested in portable solid state recorders, I'd look at reviews and sites that offer samples of recorded audio, I'd probably also avoid any tiny devices that are primarily aimed at voice recording lecture type stuff, I guess instant-tells would be not having phantom power, lack of full sized microphone/instrument jacks, etc

oh yea, and I also had checked reviews here (he provides audio samples too)
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/audio/portable-recorder-comparison/
it seems they have a forum that might have useful information too.

ooh aDFP, that's really cool =).

I'm working on something similar, trying to create a level generator that generates doom-style levels

It actually generates a logical layout, and I'm adding in colored keycards and doors soon. I really need to optimise it though, right now it takes about 10 seconds to generate because there's a lot of error checking going on :s.

love it, glad to see something like this in unity!  Are you working with prefab chunks that get assembled on the grid?  It sure looks like it at least, good color and composition going on 

you've watched half of this movie, good job! the award will be printed on your parking voucher!  you've watched the movie, good job!!! compare your awards on your parking voucher with others, who is the truest film-goer this summer?!


I like the achievements that track masterful feats, like 1 credit clears and stuff like that.  Unfortunately most modern games are not designed with that sort of mentality, because they are supposed to be accessible and appeal to the widest range of abilities and make the most money and be filled with "replayability" which means collecting everything in sight and unlocking more features and abilities over time, which means your gameplay is deep and full of value.....

Look at Treasure games.

Gunstar Heros isn't as "fucking crazy" as Alien Soldier, but it is extremely solid and well balanced I'd say, the boss fights are beautifully done.

For 3D boss fights I'd point to Sin & Punishment 2... it has some unbelievable variety and creative encounters, it also works for 2d thinking as all the mechanics are simplified down to 2d... you go from rail shooter to a 1 on 1 fighting game at one point, and it never has to force new tutorials on the player because of how well designed each scenario is.

hmm. purchased. I like the look of the interface and adjusting rigs in it.
You get a refund if they don't hit the target, so might as well.  The program appears to be a better choice than trying to learn animation in 3ds max, for me at least..

anyway some rage stuff

RAGE is HOT.  The way they are handling texturing is sure to eventually change how graphics in modern games work.

another goodie is this new LA Noire trailer,

Wing War :D