The End of Summer

A disappointing end, but an end. I’ve only come so far with my Diet ambitions. I mapped out a lot on paper, but only got as far as creating the first draft of the house map. I found a couple free tilesets that allowed me to create something above the minimal amount of pixel art standards I have for the first phase of Diet (traditional RPG knock off). Here is a screenshot of the initial map:

As far as biogenesis work I have been diligently trying to improve the trainer. The fundamental problems of behavioral complexity lie in two places: the limitations of the current version of NEAT, and the lack of interaction organisms have with the environment. This splits up the work evenly, so the former problem has driven me to isolate the training system and work on it’s own screen allowing me to try all kinds of crazy ideas:

• “plug and play” training scenarios
• formally defining ‘serial’ and ‘parallel’ training scenarios
• using CPPNs and HyperNEAT
• threading out genome training batches, since no genome training depends on another
• defining high level goals and have ANNs only access those functions
• indirect encoding

Only a few of these have been tested since my updates to all the sensors (optimization, improvement). The good news is that, by the time the environment and event systems are in place the new training system will be able to utilize them to their potential.

Lastly, my first attempt at a Ludum Dare will be this weekend. The only thing I have to prepare is what engine I’m going to use. It’s looking like GameMaker, but I’m hoping to gather up the courage and determination to use a more coded approach like pygame or XNA. Results\updates will be posted.

Summer Project Overview

With no current job I’ve taken on several game projects I’m very excited about. I’ll likely be providing development-like updates sporadically throughout this summer about each one.

biogenesis
deadline: August 16th, 2010
platform: XNA
David and I will be revamping and revisiting most of the different aspects of the project including, but not limited to:

• threading management\communication
• neuroevolution (NEAT)
• population dynamics
• fluid dynamics
• environment interaction (small and large scale)

I will post the original version we made for class soon.

prolium
deadline: ?
platform: XNA
I plan on implementing the AI system for this game still in early development. It will be a simple FSM design, but robust and abstract enough to be easily ported. I may also revisit their collision code and implement more efficient collision (it is currently a somewhat inefficient bounding box O(n^2) design).

Diet
deadline: June 7th
platform: XNA
A 2-3 week project I started with a friend and creative writing grad to explore quick story\game development and also different ways to make the story and game mechanics mesh together to create unique gaming experiences. More on this to come. I will be using the same engine Prolium will us, Valkyrie, developed by my friend Jason Spafford.

I didn’t plan on all of these to be in XNA, in fact I really wanted to focus on cross platform and open source development, but it just so happens that XNA worked out for these projects, but upcoming ideas will be implemented in Unity most likely. I may be doing some crash GameMaker designs as well!