Day 4

Mans best friend, the rat murder

Went a little out of order and added the Ratters. It started by working on to-do 3 by modifying the Guard AI so that they interact with you.  And then I already had a spawner action from the rats nest, set it up to spawn a dog at your location, created the dog entity type, and bam. a dog with a rat brain.  Most of the rest of the night was building the ratter behaviour.

The Ratter AI and game design purpose

The ratter will chase down the nearest rat, but if it gets too far away from its master it will run back. This rubber band bouncing at the 3-5 square distance mark lets the ratter act as a kind of radar to help you track down the last rat/nest hiding in the castle.

The Guard AI and game design purpose

The rats will be under powered, however the Guards thwack with heft.  They patrol the castle but won't activity hunt the player or chase them down during conflict.  If you get too close to a guard it will stop and telegraph its attack.  But back away and they will go about their business as usual.

The Rat AI

Rats will drunken walk around the castle. If the player approaches the rats will attack, and will chase down the player if you back away.  But grow enough distance and the rat will return to wandering the castle.
Whats missing from this AI are the Traps.  I only had time to implement the ratter and guard last night but still on the list are the traps.  The player can set traps.  If rat detects a trap within the same radius as the play chase zone, the rat will navigate to the trap and meet its doom.  However if the player is in the same radius the rat will prefer to attack over chase the trap. 

To-Do (in order of progressive delightfulness)

1. A winning condition ( clear a number of castles )
2. Entities that spawn entities on a timer / environmental factors  ( rat nests that create rats )
3. Modify AI for more seek/avoid behaviour ( baited traps, avoid guards, prefer staying near walls)
4. Spawn friendly AI entities ( ratters to help the player )
5. Scale based obstruction (rats can scurry under furniture that blocks the player)
6. Switch to a turn based grid movement system
   1. I really want to do this, I have a "superhot" style idea but the engine is so realtime based that this may be too much of a lift for the week :x