Game
Ruben's Puppets
7 years ago

Puppet-Brains! ⚙️🤖


How do puppets think?

Once we decided we were going to have other puppets to interact with, we knew that we needed some kind of Puppet Artificial Intelligence.
Building their brains felt a lot like taking the role of Ruben, the puppet maker, with the first prototypes being broken and crazy.

First batch of workers - What’s going on? 🤪

5d09e5299243a.gif

Sometimes you start off with a simple plan for an AI that gets out of control with time, as the list of demands for the AI grows. The best idea is to start over. It will save you a lot of time. I had to redo the entire AI system at least 6 times.

Still not ideal, but hey! At least the puppets are moving! 👍

5d09e52bd2347.gif

That’s more like it! Put the coin in the bucket! 💰

5d09e538ea5c7.gif

Archers should hit their targets! 🏹🎯

Imagine being on the ground when a storm of arrows is flying past your head. It was clear that we needed archers that can actually hit their targets in the game. Easier said than done.

First version of archers - they rarely hit the player 😢

5d09e53d76fcc.gif

How would an archer predict where their arrows will land? They had to predict where the player will be, considering both the speed of the arrow and their target.

The solution was to calculate the projectile right when the archer lets go of it. Considering that the target will move at constant speed and then calculating the projectile and time it will take to land at the desired position.

After several iterations - archers that are accurate! White sphere = predicted positions at time of arrow launch. 🎃

5d09e542426b3.gif

For anyone that’s interested in building their own archers - this article greatly helped me understand ballistic trajectories - Solving Ballistic Trajectories

Thanks for reading this devlog entry, check back soon for more news! 🌲

-G

5


1 comment

Loading...

Next up

Controller support 🎮

This week, we added support for controllers (Xbox, PS4)!

The tooltips update automatically to let you know how to use the controls. Feels like the controls fit the game very well, and are excellent for platforming. 🦘

Materials ⚙️

After several playtests it has become clear that there are a lot of items cluttered on the ground - you can now dismantle them and use the materials as a resource! Let's keep our town tidy 🧹

Added a dismantling option for unused swords or armor - can you ever have too many particles? 🐣 🎆

Working on this pandemic game since 6 months - play as birds and evolve! 🐣

Grounded Birds is lighthearted, easy to pick up but also pretty dark. It's about birds that are literally grounded ( can't fly anymore ) and need to find a way to survive. 🐤🐦

Building a level:

This week, we blocked out a level, tested it and then filled it with more beautiful environmental assets!

Players can really learn the core of the game here and prepare for battle. This is iteration 2/3 until it is added to the game!

Feathers 🪶🪶

The characters now finally have reached the fluffyness they were intended to have!

This week, we added support for controllers (Xbox, PS4)! 🎮

The tooltips update automatically to let you know how to use the controls. Feels like the controls fit the game very well, and are excellent for platforming. 🦘

gamejolt.com/games/groundedbirds/604346

The materials you get from dismantling weapons or boxes can be used to repair old buildings, such as the mill!

The mice from the mill will distract any hungry critters nearby 🐭🍞

Experience spheres 📘

Can you spot the blue spheres? They give you experience points that will let you grow your character! Melee combat = more risk but higher reward!

A first look at a new game prototype! Over the last days: multiplayer, building stuff, and cheetahs chasing you. Sticking to core mechanics first is tough, had to stop myself from going all-in on art and sound too soon!