All hail our robot overlords! This is perhaps the biggest version of Geneshift ever released. Why? Because multiplayer just became playable! Fancy that.. making a game that you can actually PLAY. Crazy! Previously if you joined an empty server there was nothing to do except run around a bit and shoot at boring, dumb gangsters. There was no challenge, no objective, no game. But just like in real life, AI has come to save the day.

These new bots are designed to play just like real players. They’ll drive cars, level skills, place chemicals, capture objectives, and even shit-talk you. They’re smart, use teamwork, and will give you a real challenge. It honestly feels like playing a regular PvP game. Half the time you won’t even notice you’re playing against a cold, heartless, silicon-fearing robot. They play a hell of a lot better than your average human, that’s for sure.

How Bots Work

Bots replace the old gangsters, and are meant to act and play just like real players. You can configure how many of them will play in the server. As real humans join and leave the server, the bots will disappear and reappear to replace them. This way you can ensure there is always a perfectly full and balanced 10 player game running at all times.

Bots play like humans and also follow the exact same rules as humans. They earn cash in the same way that humans do, and must manage their money to save up for super weapons and chemicals. They deal and take the same amount of damage as real players, with no hidden modifiers.

They also do not cheat. They can’t see through walls. They won’t try to neturalize your chemicals unless they actually SAW you place the chemical. I’ve even simulated a hazy sort of memory that fades over time. I’ve really tried to make them play as similar to real humans as possible.

Dynamic Difficulty

Bots adjust their level of difficulty to make for a fun game. The skill of a bot is mostly determined by reaction time and accuracy. Their accuracy will go up and down depending on how well their opponent is playing. They have a target K:D ratio that they want to maintain, and this ensures that every game is a fun, healthy challenge.

A brand new player to the game can fight the bots and they’ll naturally go easy on him. A veteran can fight bots and they’ll 720 Tony Hawk Pro Skater no-scope him as soon as things start getting too easy. In general when fighting against bots alone you should end up with a K:D ratio around 2:1 or so. Big thanks to the players on Gamejolt for their feedback on this. I ran a poll on my last post and most people said a 2:1 KD ratio would play best. Feels good to me!

Keep in mind that even though your K:D vs bots is guaranteed to be good, you are still going to be challenged. You might be getting more kills, but your allied bots will play worse to compensate. You get to carry your team somewhat, but with great power comes great responsibility. You’ll genuinely have to fight to beat the enemy team from capturing the objectives. And of course you’ll still have to fight other players.

Graphical Improvements

In other news, I’ve made a number of sexy graphical improvements this version. I’ve added atmospherics like light rays and floating bits of dust that give the game a real 3D effect. Firing guns is far more satisfying with sexy new particle effects, debris, blood and muzzle smoke. Bullets now glow and look extra chunky too.

New Multiplayer Features

I’ve also copied a bunch of features from the campaign across to the PvP modes. The kill combo system from the campaign now also applies when fighting against bots/humans and awards you a bit of extra cash for getting combo kills. Awesome points also occur in multiplayer now, and give you +50xp as well as +2 phasers for the rest of your life. You’ll occassionally get a free hp/mana drop when killing enemies too. And also killing an enemy with a chemical now causes the same chemical explosion effect as seen in the campaign.

General balancing

A beautiful side benefit of bots is that we can really playtest the game now. In our latest test build we discovered that Bionic Gas, Lasing Orb and Self Repair were OP af. So they have been nerfed with the power of a thousand keystrokes (or at least like.. 20). Self Repair now auto disables once you reach max health too. And a few more tweaks that I can’t remember.

Marketing Plans

The only thing more fun to fight than these new smart bots is actual players. And now that this version is out I am officially switching gears into 100% marketing mode. The campaign is done, the PvP is finally playable, and it’s time to spread the word.

So stay tuned over the next few weeks as I start emailing youtubers, posting memes on le reddit and finding other ways to get players into this game. If you want to invite your friends to play the free multiplayer in the demo, now would be a great time!

Have fun and please give me feedback here or in Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/geneshift