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Exploring a Heuristic Based Director AI
⚠️ The core gameplay of the project was a secondary priority to experimenting with Director AI as a system
Director AI
Director AI is intended to be a dynamic system for game dramatics, pacing, and difficulty. It achieves this through measuring gameplay metrics to create a heuristic of the player's engagement and/or mood. Metrics can come from anywhere where we can assume something regarding the players experience; low health often means players are being overwhelmed while high health could indicate boredom.
This is the crux of such a system - controlling an experience.
My attempt at such a system was comprised of the following metrics:
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The distance to the next checkpoint
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The current health of the player
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The amount of enemies killed within a certain timeframe
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The average distance each kill was made at
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The last player death (which would indicate a difficulty limit)
The metrics would inform an overall heuristic of the current difficulty, with the general trend being to push it as high as possible then lowering it to grant a reprieve. With basic gameplay, difficulty was largely determined by the balance of the hostile AI agents, meaning the heuristic would control the speed, damage and number of enemies rather than impacting the difficulty of secondary gameplay loops.
Gameplay
The gameplay and visuals mostly act as a structure for the director system to be tested within, as such its not overly fleshed out.
The included first person character controller is typical, with added abilities such as dashing and slow-mo.
The player can shoot projectiles to destroy enemies as a means to progress through a level that is visually appealing, albeit not overly complex.
Analysis & Thoughts
As an avenue for learning this project was great, it allowed me to explore more complex topics and begin discovering the importance of elements of game design I had previously undervalued. However I cannot deny that the final product is quite lacklustre - technical complexity means little to players if it has no on screen impact.
Work that showcases technical ability is important but I have come to learn it does not have to be mutually exclusive with work that is fun and engaging.