The AI Involved In My Game

My game has a huge list of animals, which means that adding a good AI (Artificial Intellingence) system might be a good use of my time. What exactly is AI? AI is a way to make computers "smart". Computers are uniform, and always return the same result if given the same parameters. Animals are not exactly uniform like that squirrel in the photo.



To make the animals "random", but still base their decision on input from a player, you could use input like the system time for the "random" part of the AI, and the player input for the controlled part. For instance, an animal wouldn't just fall into a hole without it being camouflaged, so now there is another addition to my game. You could have blocks that are camouflaged for pitfalls.

Also, in a similar game, the wolves always drown under a block if you aren't careful. There is another reason for AI. If dwarves that mined for you didn't know how to branch mine, they wouldn't be a very good use of your gold when you tamed them with it. And with monkeys, if they didn't know how to farm, it wouldn't be a very good use of your bananas.

With all these reasons, let's start to think about concept. You need to use numbers, numbers, and more numbers to get a smart decision. Computers don't recognize the block id as "solid" or "non-solid". They just see it as "a number". I need to create code that recognizes the id's and determines a path to take. After all, I don't want the pigs in my game to be suicidal by jumping off a cliff!

So how do I tell the animals where to go? You could classify each of the blocks as "dangerous", "neutral", "liquid", etc. Based on these decisions, an animal could go towards the blocks that are attractive to that animal, and away from the ones that are dangerous. But what about carnivores? how does it decide which mob to target on an infinite map? You could separate the mobs into areas, and only inform the carnivore of the mobs in the area.

I hope this gives you an idea of my game's AI!

Doc

The Main TFFS Web Site

TFFS had a web site, this is currently offline. My site is being constructed so that it will have a better look and feel. My old site just didn't pop out at you when you saw it, so I am making a better one (it was my second web site). My new site uses a combination of HTML and CSS. HTML (HyperText Markup Language) was one of the first forms of visual web pages. HTML is becoming slowly more obsolete, but it is still a popular format, especially when used with CSS.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is another powerful tool for making web sites. You don't need CSS, but it gives you a great number of abilities:

*You can change EVERY page by only changing ONE CSS document
*It allows code to be reused
*It is not complicated (Neither is HTML)
*It uses less memory on huge sites
*It allows a large amount of change to be made to your site

I was convinced as soon as I knew what I was doing.

HTML, or HyperText Markup Language is like the parent of all markup languages. It showed that a markup language can have a lot of power. When you view a web site made with HTML, your browser sends the domain name (example: tffsgame.blogspot.com) to your ISP's (Internet Service Provider) DNS (Domain Name Server) system, which pings (sends a request) other DNS servers to find the site's IP address. After this, your computer connects to that IP address and requests the .html file you are looking for. If that file needs a .css file, it does all those steps again, but for the .css file.

You will have to excuse me for my geeky posts, right now, I am hiring no-one except a web host. Right now, I do:

3-D Modeling
Java programming
HTML programming
3-D Engine programming
CSS programming
Image editing
Sound editing
Some of the music
etc.

Now, hopefully, you understand the huge process that goes on in a split second to bring you my site!

Doc

My Company Plan And It's History

My game started as a simple idea ("a 3-D game"). I was learning how to program 2-D games for java, and then I got curious about making it 3-D. I started using Google, my favorite search engine, and I found a lot of resources about 3-D engines in java. I chose a powerful engine called lwjgl to do the job.

The Idea of a sandbox world made of blocks is obviously a really great idea. I have played other similar games, and I liked the idea a lot. However, something was missing, and I did not fully enjoy the games. I feel that the missing feature is a goal. In my game, the goal is fighting against other colonies to control more land, manufacturing resources to do so, and then expand your colony. You may not think that this is enough of a goal. Neither do I. To solve this, I am making experience, levels, and making certain blocks craftable at a certain level. You will also be able to buy more heath, fatigue, hunger limits, etc.

My game and it's site is not at it's professional state right now. At this point, I am just a kid on a computer, typing away the day (that's right, one man job). Even though it is not going to be professional at the first version, it will be something entertaining. If I get enough support at the early versions, I can make the site better, and the game better. At first, I am running the game on an eight year old computer, so I still have some hardware to buy.

My game will be updated, about every couple of months. The game's first few versions will probably be released under Creative Commons, but when it is updating, the newest few versions will be supported with the MMOG system, while old ones will be single player. What is creative commons? Creative commons is a way to claim ownership for my work but enable people to distribute it. If you share this site or the Main Site with your friends, I can buy a new server and make multiplayer better.

The Fight For Survival; A List Of Decisions

In my game, there will be a very dynamic gameplay, with many different animals. In a computer game, there are not as many things to do as in real life, but to bring more action to the game, I have a big list of things I am putting in my game (eventually). A great majority of the list is more animals. I am putting in a huge number of animals, each with a few big rolls.

In a computer game, there is not as much input/output, and that makes it harder to give a good gameplay. I have to bring a good game to the controls available. With a mouse, you can turn your view, and with a keyboard you can move. With a HUD (Heads Up Display), you can tell how much health, fatigue and hunger you have.

I have a big list of items, actions, blocks, etc. to put in my game. Some of these are:

The Aether (Sky Dimension)
The Underworld (Lava underground cave system)
Big boats (for long trips at sea)
Huge oceans, small islands
Infinite Multiplayer map (or at least as infinite as my server's capacity)
Hunger, Thirst, and Fatigue (fatigue makes you pass out and lose health)
Colonies, towns, cities, HUGE WARS!
Pirates (raid your ship at sea)
Hobos (they attack you)
Dangerous animals are very aggressive at night (don't worry, no zombies)

I also have more ideas, but those are some of the significant ones. If you have more ideas, please comment!

I have a good list of animals to put in the game. I will probably add:

Bears
Raccoons
Jaguar
Monkeys (tamable)
Dwarves (tamable)
Wolves (tamable)
Horses (tamable)
Falcon (tamable)
Giant Venus Fly Traps (plantable)
Birds
Sheep
Pigs
Sharks
Foxes
Chickens
Cows
Alligators

Also:

Natives
Traveler (sells you magic beans to go to the aether)

I think that that list is pretty good, however, I still need more dangerous animals, and tamable animals (please comment!). I hope this brought my game's concept more to light!

Doc

An Overview Of My Game

I am making a game about survival. It will be called "The Fight For Survival"©, using a popular theme of a sandbox game made of blocks. It will be an RPG, MMOG, and FPS. In my game, you play with people around the world, trying to survive against other colonies. When you join a server, you start out as a part of no colony. You can choose to start a colony, or join an existing colony. At night, wild animals attack your colony (including bears, raccoons, alligators, jaguars; The list goes on!)

The game will be released and sold on a different site, but this is the temporary site for news on my game. In my game, I will try to make it as much fun, excitement, and action as I can fit into a MMOG/RPG/FPS! Follow my game's development and I will keep working on it for a long time!

Is my game another knockoff of a similar "Mining and Crafting" game? You may think so. This is not true. My game is an attempt to create a similar game with a different (and I believe better) Concept. My game is BASED on that "Mining and Crafting" game. I hope that you give my game a chance and follow it's development. If you like my game's concept, please become a member of my blog.

Doc