The Other Brothers Developer Diary

[sladeums]

Uh-oh ...
Doesn't look like the former team members wanna let go of this one :

http://www.dotbunny.com/blog/news/th...-cancellation/

We’ve been holding off for a while to post an official statement in regards to the recent events revolving around the title “The Other Brothers”. At this point, we have the following public statement for release:

This is a declaration of intent to put any / or all parties involved in the development, production, marketing, distribution, and/or sale of “The Other Brothers” title or any derivative of such work on notice. Should this title reach market distribution, we will assert our legal rights to the intellectual property and/or any profit sharing agreements in place prior.

[ThomasP]

Originally Posted by sladeums

Uh-oh ...
Doesn't look like the former team members wanna let go of this one :

http://www.dotbunny.com/blog/news/th...-cancellation/

Hi there Sladeums,

Please simply ignore what dotbunny is posting. Bjorn and I are the founders (IP Holder) of TOB and he was brought on to do the programming. After 3 to 4 months of very little progress and attempts to get things moving faster we decided it's best to let go of him. No hard feelings. Unfortunately, he doesn't take it so well and that's why you see his funky statements and claims

You can find more info here: http://mobile.indiegamemag.com/the-o...-the-contrary/

We have completely discarded ALL code and started from scratch. As a matter of fact, we have achieved more in 2 weeks than we previously have in 3 months thanks to Robert and Guiseppe (Simian Squared).

With that said, there is really nothing else to add to the story. Anyone can see that things are moving faster than ever and that should be proof enough.

We are here to make a great game so let's focus on that

Thomas P.

[SimianSquared]

Indeed. This diary entry focusses entirely on technology.

Tech behind The Other Brothers

We decided to go with Unity because it's one of the "big three" (Unity, Cryengine and UDK). Unity won out because of it's incredible platform reach plus fantastic workflows. If we want it in consoles and vita and even televisions - we can!

How about the rendering - what approach did we take?

The key thing to realise about The Other Brothers is that it uses shader technology and render to texture to achieve the pixel effects instead of "just" low resolution art. This means we can drive the game with a lot of subtle "mode 7" style effects as seen on consoles and computers of yesteryear. While the STYLE of the game is retro, it is in no way primitive under the hood!

This allows really fantastic "retro-cool" style effects such as mosaic effects in realtime - stuff you would only find by hacking primitive older custom chips such as the Copper in the Amiga or Mode 7 on the Super Nintendo.

We think it gives it a cooler vibe having a "virtual retro gpu" !



Stay Pixelated!

[SimianSquared]

Ok guys, just a heads up. This Thursday's live stream will be on 20:30 GMT+0
Come and see the developers live and chat with us, and see us develop in realtime


URL: http://www.livestream.com/bjornhurri


Really hope to see you guys there!

[SimianSquared]

As a reminder: the live stream is up in an hour so get ready!!! http://www.livestream.com/bjornhurri

We will answer all your questions there and show you some cool stuff live

[ThomasP]

If you want to watch how games are made... now is the time. Bjorn Hurri is painting live at:



http://www.livestream.com/bjornhurri




Thomas P.

[SimianSquared]

The next post will be about AI, in particular - does smart AI actually mean more fun? also I will talk about the decisions the AI makes behind the scenes, so stay peeled, folks

[SimianSquared]

Just finished the AI. I spent so long on this it's unreal. Tonnes and tonnes of work. Tomorrow (TOBsday, where we do a live stream!) I will post up a massive write-up on it. I guarantee you'll be impressed with what I've done with the AI in this game. It goes far beyond anything you'll find in a typical platformer. This does not include BOSS AI as that will be treated uniquely.

Also to come will be an insight into our wicked new trailer we're making!

Stay pixelated!

[SimianSquared]

Check out our artist for The Other Brothers (who has worked for AAA for 10 years) work on our game here: http://www.livestream.com/bjornhurri in 30 mins!

edit: for those who missed it, a recap is here! http://www.livestream.com/bjornhurri...5-20d0f16c5188

An older build of the game is shown of an early level as well for a sneak peek!

[SimianSquared]

A.I

Artificial Intelligence, or Acute Idiocity? There's a lot of fun to be had making AI and it's actually very easy for an experienced programmer like me to invent AI that is foolproof and able to dodge your every attack while ensuring it can kill you. At Simian Squared, I've spent many late nights devising the perfect blend of AI, and observing my pet cats... although to be honest, I think they were observing me!

But AI is an interesting subject. Make them too smart and it becomes tiring.... make it too stupid and it becomes predictable. Instead for games, the best AI is "entertaining" AI. It must always behave interesting and make you play a little bit different for each creature, it is how you make the game or break the game.

I actually felt that the most important part for the AI in The Other Brothers would be to make the AI force the player to Play Different. Play Different is a motto of mine when it comes to playability and game mechanics. I love to make the player use the same controls, but react and act differently in response to situations the game throws up.



As you can see in the above screenshot, it shows ratty, he has a red box surrounding him which allows the level designers to change his 'Aggro Range' - the range in which he will get extremely annoyed with you!

The yellow line indicates the patrol route. Both are adjustable, so you can have rats which patrol a very long way, or rats that can't see very far. The designer is able to change the tint of any creature as well as change these properties. Best of all, every property in the AI is animatable...! So without the programmer being present, it's possible for an artist or level designer to create a virtually unlimited amount of behaviour from a simple set of behaviours. I try to discourage them though. A level designer out of control is a terrifying thing for a programmer to witness!

Each creature in TOB has 3 difficulty levels the designer can pick from. There's stupid, average and smart. This is adjusted in the code on a per-creature basis (it's a lot of work!) but it's worth it because you don't want every creature to behave the same. For example stupid dogs can't spot you creeping up behind them, but average dogs can. Smart dogs may even avoid your stomp attacks from time to time...

Controlled Random

It's important to have a "controlled random fury" going on with the numbers. In my AI, the system is constantly fed inputs with random variation. The player might be close, but it has a little random fudge to it as the enemy might not judge if you're perfectly close enough to have a nibble on. Likewise this is present for their movement behaviour.

Sometimes random numbers fight random numbers which are fed in as a fudge for a normal sensory input, which makes it feel like it is making decisions (it actually is) but sometimes it will not always be a good decision.

It was important to slow down how often enemies make decisions. This is known as the time it takes to change your mind. This also has a little random edge to it as well. Nothing is completely random at all, it is merely taking a cold logical true or false, and giving it shades of grey for exciting variation.

Emotion and Logic

Each creature has a boredom level as well. If you keep diddling around it will get bored of your pranks and wander back off... maybe. Don't be surprised if a smart one pretends to lose interest and walk off...

After all what is more fun to fight: spock or the hulk? Spock would grip you or distract you (yawn) but the Hulk has random fury and will smash the place up, you could slip away or Hulk could get distracted by a cheeseburger. You just don't know.

Above all, the AI in TOB is very much interested in giving the player a good time rather than being infallable. It's entertaining AI, not stressful AI. And every single creature is different.

Stay Pixelated

-Rob