Games!
That’s right, game’s, I’ve been playing them! Or at least trying demos.
Tired the demo for the over-hyped Left 4 Dead 2. While I’m a fan of Left 4 Dead, 2 doesn’t offer all that much more in the way of “new features”, just some new faces, voices and terrain. The whole addition of melee weapons takes away from the dual pistol logic, pretty much cripling any interest I had in it. Sure, a frying pan is fun to wahck zombies with, but what about being able to use a Mag Pistol and Frying Pan? Why do I have to sacrifice a pistol that is vastly supperior to half of the starting weapons for a stupid melee? Why do I need limited ammo? C’mon guys!
I have the beta of League of Legends, but have not played it yet. Looks like a decent RTS game, with some fun multiplayer, I just have not started it up yet. The beta is free to pay, so I’m sold on that for the time being. The website feels far too much like a korean MMO right now, but that’s fine because most korean MMOs are actually rather fun, even if rediculously hard on the leraning curve.
Have my eyes set on Tortchlight in the near future. $20 for a Diablo-clone by the same guys that made Diablo? What’ not to love there? Mayb be a single-player game, but for that price, a self-distributed game is probably well worth it. I’ve heard many good reviews of it, and I’m hoping it holds up. I’m a huge fan of Diablo, and with luck this litte pck-me-up will be just the thing I need while I’m waiting for Diablo III to show it’s ugly face in 2011.
I have tried 3 times to download the Mod verion of Dino D-Day, with no luck. It is supposedly a HL2 mod and soon-to-be-full-game where you fight Nazi Dinosaurs. (For anyone who has seen Idiocracy, this should not be a new concept) The demo video looked fun but I have given up trying to download it for now. I just cannot get an installer that works! Maybe sometime in the future, when I feel the need to punch a T-Rex in the face, I will try again.
Lastly, I found out about a Startcraft AI competition. Seems that this game just will not die! Several APIs exist for developing bots for the existing game, adding on their own AI dlls to play against. A very nifty concept and impressiv for a 10+ year old game. Expressive Intelligence Studio is holding an AI competition with a dealine of September 2010 for entries. They promote using something called the BroodWar API for programming it. It’s a nifty and pretty straight-forward way to interface with the game, and allows anyone with basic C++ knowledge to easily work with the game and programming. They are also working on a LUA interface for scripting that way too.
I’ve been poking at the BW API just a little and have decided I am going to go as far as making an AI that builds a basic base, and sends a single group of units to attack. That’s all I want to do because making a proper AI is way way to hard. Now if anyone wants to try and start a team to develop a SC AI, then I’d be glad to help, but by myself I just do not have the time, motivation, or knowledge to make a working, let alone competative level, AI for SC.
Here is an interesting AI competition http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1631414/what-is-the-best-battleship-ai
It only took me 45 mins to make my first non random/sequential/simple bot. Easy to test easy to start and the test case is already done for you.
There are lots of examples online, including one of mine.
I know it highschool level question but I have not done and AI programing in years so I thought that it would be good practice to get back in to it.
Also have you heard about http://globalgamejam.org/ i was thinking about doing it this year for shits and giggles, its been years since i have made anything but the most simplest game.
Update more!!11!!
Comment by Steven Smethurst — November 17, 2009 @ 4:30 pm
Damnit, I wish I had seen this earlier! I so would have made a battleship bot for that! I already have one planned. Nice find though, saves me the effort of making the gameplay first.
GGJ sounds fun. I haven”t done programming competetions since my ACM training at BCIT. I’m sure you’ve heard Jordan go on and on about it. It was tough, but fun. For GGJ I know I’d be a great help since ‘m a professional game dev already! I would have to clear it with my bosses, though, because I do have a non-compete and an NDA from work. But, since I wouldn’t be using any of my company’s code, I’m sure it’d be fine. In fact, if you want to start a team, I’ll jump through the hoops and join in.
Comment by aleph — November 24, 2009 @ 10:28 pm