This week marked the end of the old sprint and the beginning of the new. The teams pushed to finish up some last minute details, and start on their new goals. One of the most important tasks recently has been creating a new commander type AI for bosses as well as unique NPC’s in the game, and we made a lot of progress.
Our new commander AI will allow groups of creatures to join forces and share: AI knowledge, decisions, and pathing. It will allow the commander to make tactical decisions for the group, and seek appropriate cover as a group if it turns out their target isn’t quite the easy kill they thought it was. Also, commander AI can add more followers to their group in case the ranks are getting a bit thin or they encounter some like minded horrors in the jungle. Our goal is to make our hulking brutes a bit smarter than the rest, and add a touch of dread to recruitment day in Lahaina.
While the tech team was busy making it easier for the mutants to organize and kill players, the web team was making it easier for players to navigate the website. They have had their heads down for weeks making user flow improvements, and working on messaging issues. In the coming days you’ll notice some tweaks to: the front page, how you login, the player dashboard, and a newly styled referrer page.
We’ve restyled a number of our social media pages too, and now have separate email templates for dev updates, special announcements, and story updates. In addition Jesse has slide templates for callouts and contests. Speaking of which, there’s just a few days left for you to win a brand new AMD Radeon RX 570 RS 8GB. There are multiple ways to enter, but not many days left before the December 15 cutoff date.
While Terry has been swamped with a flood of merge issues, editor problems, and failed commits, we finished up a few drone improvements just in time for the end of sprint 29. While the camera and pathing improvements are noticeable right away, one of the things we are most proud of is the AI improvements we’ve added. We still have a long way to go before the game’s autonomous drones are the voyeuristic cinematographers we have in mind, but they are getting there. Right now they can surreptitiously film wildlife and creatures in their habitat so well, that you expect to hear an Attenborough voice-over to start discussing the life cycle of the typical Maui mutant, and how their secret handshake differs slightly in various regions.
With much of the previous sprint’s work done, we looked forward to our goals for the next. Sprint 30 will focus on finishing up some more drone improvements, adding some polish to the commander AI, and advancing gameplay through improved harvesting & crafting. We’re introducing new types of ore and resources, as well as smelters, but more on that in the weeks to come.
Finally, with all the focus we’ve placed on animals recently, some of the team decided to add their own personal touches to a few animal screenshots. Below you can see some of our favorite treatments to one of our favorite scenes of the life and death struggle in the forests of Lahaina, enjoy!
