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[phi6]

Just a quick update from me today whilst I sort out Part #3 of the AI! Indie blogger AngelikMayhem has recently posted about TinyKeep's Kickstarter campaign on his YouTube channel. In his video, he talks about seeds and how he is looking forward to this feature in our game.

So what are seeds exactly? As our response, I thought I'd best get Ben to explain, and also talk about how they affect the level's difficulty.





We are pretty excited about using seeds - we think it will open up the game to the community and allow you guys to discuss and share the game's secrets.

AngelikMayhem is currently running his blog XBOX Minecraft Seeds, where he regularly shares reviews and videos of seeded Minecraft worlds. He has kindly offered to do the same for TinyKeep when it is released, so we look forward to the many interesting dungeons he will discover!

[phi6]

Yesterday we reached our first £10k of pledges! Here's a quick video from me to say thanks. (Several of our backers came from this very thread at TIGSource).







8 days to go to make the full amount!

[phi6]

Hey guys and welcome to the 3rd update about TinyKeep's AI. Today's video and interactive demo showcases a couple of new features.





- Click to attack! This is by no means a complete combat system, instead it's here to allow you to create some nice corpses for testing today's new behaviour.

- Orcs! Like Skeletons, these monsters are Aggressive and will chase and seek you out. Similar to the Fire Imps, they employ a group system that notifies each other of threats once a single Orc can spot you in his line of sight. Attack Orcs with your sword enough times and he will die, leaving a movable corpse in his place.

- If a Skeleton comes across a corpse while not alert (not currently chasing a character) it will attempt to eat it. Skeletons regain health while eating, and if you let it eat for long enough the corpse will turn into another undead Skeleton! While eating, the Skeleton has a reduced field of view which allows the player to sneak up on it more.

As always, interactive demos of all of the AI updates so far can be found here:

http://tinykeep.com/ai

Further ideas for eating AI



There's a lot we can do with this concept to bring some really interesting gameplay opportunities. Skeletons crowd around corpses with reduced FOV so it might be beneficial for the player to kill an Orc, drag it to a room and wait for a group of Skeletons to get distracted. Perhaps corpses naturally turn into Skeletons if they are left too long. How about other hungry monsters? We've mentioned in an earlier update about "flytrap-like" plants that hug the corridors of the dungeon, waiting for their next meal to walk past. Maybe we could have a hungry glutton pet that routinely eats up corpses you leave behind to prevent the Skeletons from getting there first. There are a lot of possibilities to explore!

The Next Few Days

As some of you may already know - my game TinyKeep is on Kickstarter and there are currently only 7 days left of funding to go! If you have enjoyed the updates on TinyKeep so far, please consider pledging so I can continue active development of the game. Currently I have accrued almost half the amount I need, but as Kickstarter is all or nothing I need to make the full £22k or I lose all my pledges so far.

Thanks very much!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/phidinh/tinykeep

[phi6]

Thank you TIGSource for mentioning this project on the front page!
You have no idea how much that means to me

[phi6]

We're getting there on Kickstarter! But not quite fast enough! It's going to be a close call But in the meantime, welcome to Part 4 of our AI series of updates:



In Part 2 (Retreating) we briefly touched on how Fire Imps in each other's line of sight were connected as a group, and they would share alert levels. Today, I'm going to explain a little bit more about how group movement works - and also introduce a new monster to the pack: The Skeleton Archer, with its Ranged Attacks! Combine Archers and Skeletons together and you have quite a challenging group of foes to deal with.





Try the interactive demo:

http://tinykeep.com/ai/4

Or take a look at our previous demos at the usual place:

http://tinykeep.com/ai

Apart from the new Archer behaviours, there's no special code to formulate groups here. It just so happens that a combination of melee type Skeletons (who are extremely aggressive and will chase you down as much as possible) and ranged Archers (who are cautious and will try to maintain a certain distance from you) results in quite effective emergent behaviour - it almost looks like they are working together.

More Ideas for Group AI

The above shows very basic, fundamental rules for group interaction. It's a work in progress - but we plan on bringing you more complex manoeuvres in regards to group tactics. Depending on the monster type, critters will be able to do the following:

- Monsters won't attack if they are alone, and will flee instead. Some intelligent ones will flee towards a known group of other monsters. This results in luring, pulling the character towards a more dangerous area and then attacking again.
- Wounded skeletons prefer to escape while their friends are locked in battle - to go and find corpses, heal, and return to the fray later.
- Leaders - if a Skeleton King is in the area, his minions will tend to follow and do what he does.
- Flanking - if the player is currently engaged in battle, other monsters will attempt to flank you from either side or behind.

There are more ambitious plans for bosses/leaders and how their monsters interact with them - but we can't give too much away, part of the fun is discovering them for yourself!

[Quarry]

4k in 2 days I'm so concerned about this

[phi6]

Stay optimistic! I am! (It keeps me sane)
Many KS projects have made more in the last day!

[ananasblau]

Stay optimistic! I am! (It keeps me sane)
Many KS projects have made more in the last day!

3500 in 2 days isn't impossible. Time to call friends and family (again) and promise them a party if it succeeds.

[phi6]

So on Friday 31 May 5:44am UTC the TinyKeep Kickstarter funding amount closed off at a handsome £25,675, plus £142 in PayPal donations to give a grand total of £25,817! This means we have exceeded our target by £3655! Thank you so much guys, the last few hours were extremely tense but ultimately ensured that we reached the funding amount we wanted and more



Thanks to everyone, we've managed to successfully fund 3 stretch goals! And just for fun - we decided to throw in the 4th stretch goal as well

Alas, the Kickstarter funding period has ended, but we can still accept PayPal donations. To do so simply click on the "Donate now with PayPal" button on the Kickstarter home page. All money pledged this way will go towards fulfilment of the online co-operative multiplayer stretch goal which clearly everyone is very excited about!

As promised, here is the last AI video:





This will be my last post for the time being - while the team sorts out their personal and financial affairs. We'll be back!

[Connor]

Congrats! hope to see more from this in the future 

[Quarry]

That was SO CLOSE, good job!

[phi6]

To anyone following this, I've opened a new post-KS DevLog thread where I'll be documenting the next 49 weeks of development. Excited!

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=36176.0