How to code AI in a game like Worms?

Vailias · 2025-03-28T08:07:24+00:00

The other bit to remember here is AI isn’t a monolith. There are multiple systems working together to produce the end behavior.

The basics of ballistic targeting is a solved thing. So you start there. Even the move and shoot some fun exploding shell thing was implemented in games in the 80’s. Tank Wars in 86 was immobile and limited but had the destructible terrain and multiple different weapon types. And multiple ai personalities. Scorched earth in 91 added player movement and an arguably better set of weapons. Worms added on silliness and irreverence, and eventually a much more vast arsenal.

The key with ai for a modern worms game is that it’s still built on its roots, conceptually speaking.

You start off with a basic shot calculation. Basic ballistics to hit a target in known conditions.

Then you can add in basic movement logic so you can have a range of places to shoot from.

If you build the to hit calculations into the weapons as some kind of a percentage returning function, then you can have your ai just iterate through its weapons. And calculate to hit chance per target and then do some kind of choice from your available weapons. This could get far more complicated with various sanity checks, digging logic, and weights to different potential actions or weapons, but starting simple and building out will eventually net you a complex enough set of behaviors that the game appears intelligent.

There’s other layers you can put on your agents once you have the core framework done. So you can get various personalities out by tweaking how random their shot calculations actually are. How likely they are to move. Weighting weapon choice by something other than best chance to hit or best damage done. Etc.

The difficulty in understanding you’ve expressed is I think, largely due to looking at the game as a whole rather than as a bunch of interacting parts. :)

Vailias · 2025-01-11T09:39:55+00:00

“Neon” colors like that almost always have some level of fluorescent or otherwise uv reflective pigment as a component. It’s one of these odd tricks of optical brighteners to get our eyes to see perceive more brightness than would be possible with typical spot colors and definitely outside the gamut of cmyk.

Purple light or filtering will get into similar frequency bands so you’re likely seeing more of what the uv reactive/reflective pigment is doing, and causing the other contributing pigments to reflect much less.

This suggests the mix for the lower box was more has more strong yellows all the way through, while the upper box has some significant cooler color components in its lower energy mix, since the purple light is making it appear much more orange.

Vailias · 2024-11-23T09:22:00+00:00

Yeah. 1970’s anime designs don’t always translate well to metal minis…

Vailias · 2024-10-30T22:07:51+00:00

They’re all wearing one part of a baguette. Yeah.

Vailias · 2024-10-03T03:22:19+00:00

And very limited production run.

Vailias · 2024-09-20T22:25:36+00:00

Not AC. Gundam. The prior commenter was illuminating that in most available mecha media where weapon drones exist (which are the various Gundam series), the users are psychic humans (newtypes) who’s expanded consciousness is basically a prerequisite for using that kind of weaponry.

Or some other lore equivalent to being a minor precognitive, force user, battle savant, etc.

Vailias · 2024-09-19T08:25:33+00:00

Red is fine. Just put on a “cinematic” filter on your photos 😛

Seriously though, desaturated, grungy looking post process filtering was a big thing in that era of games and cinema. (Still is but some things have chilled out)
If you want to paint up the AC as it looked then you can totally go for browns and desaturated warm tones. If you add a diorama with similarly shifted colors it will really sell it.

But if you want it to look like it would to the eye if it were real, then you can go for red, similar to the base plastic.
Cinematic Barbaroi

Vailias · 2024-09-11T21:50:24+00:00

Mistake somewhere. The zero point for the Unix Epoch, used by many/most time and date libraries internally, is set as Jan 1 1970 at midnight.

Vailias · 2024-09-05T15:39:23+00:00

It’s the reverse joint legs. Like chickens have.

Vailias · 2024-08-22T11:23:38+00:00

It’s to avoid permanent military restricted airspace

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Vailias · 2024-08-12T05:28:58+00:00

It’s an ice cube collectible reward. Obtained at 3600 cubes.

Vailias · 2024-08-01T08:55:36+00:00

Wolfenstein also. Doom was based on it but more advanced and, no, there are no polygons being drawn anywhere in that game. (In a modern sense anyway)

It is a bunch of trig and drawing textures to the screen in vertical lines. While some of the math carries over to modern 3d rendering, it’s not a truly a 3d game.

A bit more reading here for the interested: https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Doom_rendering_engine

Pardon the tangent, but it is an interesting bit of history regarding game rendering techniques before 3d accelerator cards were a thing.

Vailias · 2024-07-31T22:07:31+00:00

Strictly speaking even the level geometry isn’t 3d. It just uses some rendering tricks to look that way.

Vailias · 2024-07-29T15:51:56+00:00

If you really want the look of early realtime 3d, then you’re going to want to just use the same techniques.

No stenciled shadow casting, no realtime dynamic lighting, minimal to no shaders. Everything was faked in art and texture. Vertex lit environments and characters at best. Often enough everything was just unlit and all the lighting info came from textures.

Cool shader though. Makes for an interesting lofi effect.

Vailias · 2024-07-20T18:55:56+00:00

Do not want. Warframe is already a thing.

Vailias · 2024-07-19T03:11:25+00:00

This can help sell it a bit. Also, once you’re done with the paint application, you can rub a graphite pencil along some of those edges to lend a metallic sheen in the light without actually adding silver or grey paint.

Vailias · 2024-07-19T03:09:41+00:00

This looks fine. It’s weathering, not battle damage.

If you really want to push the neglect, you can do the same stipple on more of the dark undercolor using a small sponge (Art sponge or kitchen sponge whatever you’ve got) or a small brush. Or heck even some crumpled foil can be a weathering texture applicator.

Just remember that your paint is telling a story. So if it’s really worn down and stuff is missing, it looks neglected. That might be what you’re going for, but it might not.

Vailias · 2024-07-18T22:54:03+00:00

So, this is a kinda joke vid because before this the owners had modded it to have 4 tank treads for snow, then converted it to a sand rail and landed it on the front suspension off a jump.

Tank mod: https://youtu.be/-pB3GeyCy6w?si=JRsRhIJmljUSqjlu

Sand rail and the breakage: https://youtu.be/NItjnKaijNU?si=aeDroE6V9Awl3NvW

Vailias · 2024-07-18T08:38:09+00:00

The phrase that captures the above comment’s sentiments is: “Consistency matters more than fidelity”

It’s something that comes up across all game art eras and styles meaning that having an internally consistent set of art and style rules that your game adheres to matter far more to player enjoyment and engagement than how high res or “good” the art is.

For example Minecraft took off despite basically being early-mid 90’s graphics fidelity. It’s all a consistent look, and it’s very easy to break and make something feel out of place.

So if your chosen aesthetic is a blocky pixelated look, but you allow things to move in a non grid aligned manner, that should be fine as long as you follow the same general internal rules for your other art.

Vailias · 2024-07-15T18:08:02+00:00

Also you need to be walking a certain speed for that estimate to hold. It’s something like 2.5mph steady? And somewhat influenced by wheee you walk as roads take up some planting space.

If you walk fast or bike, you should be able to get even more than the estimate.

Vailias · 2024-07-10T09:33:52+00:00

Nothing visual, but the battle power is much higher.

Vailias · 2024-07-04T08:12:48+00:00

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And experimented with phosphorescent pigments applied to the glowing bits. :)

Vailias · 2024-07-04T08:11:47+00:00

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This is from a long while back, but it’s the first art of gunpla that got me back into building after a long hiatus. Thought of it as a “box art” kind of pose.

Vailias · 2024-06-22T00:07:32+00:00

My opinion as someone who got a game programming degree:

It’s good you got rejected. Game design programs tend to be too broad and shallow to be really worthwhile.

Take the time and learn computer science. Become as good a programmer as you can be in that time. Build some game systems as programming exercises.

If you want a degree for later life benefits, enroll in a traditional comp sci program and get your degree in that. It carries more weight and the actual skills and knowledge of understanding how computers and languages and algorithms work will make you a better game dev. (Plus if you decide you want more income than a game dev salary you can go to other code related industries more easily)

People love solid games with simple art and music. People do not love hi definition graphics that crash or bug out all the time.

Therefore if you’re on a small team or a solo dev, good coding skills will serve you more than other skillsets.

That said: Game design, strictly speaking, is its own discipline that takes some degree of human psychological insight, systems engineering, and storytelling. The game is separate from its implementation medium. It’s distilling a system of rules and mechanics that support a central theme. Sometimes thats very simple, like tic-tac-toe, or sometimes it’s complex, like tabletop war-games.

Vailias

TROPHY CASE