Combat
Game
Documents about Combat
A Dark Mind: The AI of ""The Dark"" in BELOW
The development of the tentacle-based entity known as The Dark in the game BELOW centers on achieving a balance between fluid, animalistic movement and structured, readable combat mechanics.
- Capy Games developed 'The Dark' for the game BELOW using a 30-bone mesh tentacle system that combines bespoke squirmy idle animations with a kinematic chain controlled by an inverse kinematic (IK) tip target.
- To solve issues with poor animation blending caused by complex kinematic states, the team implemented a shape-casting system that rotates around a target to find unobstructed goal positions for the tentacle tips.
- The team transitioned from a rigid, order-of-execution rule system to a flat scoring-based architecture, allowing for configurable weights that make it easier to balance competing behaviors like avoiding the player versus hiding the tentacle base.
How Zombies Are Shaking Up the Puzzle Genre
The mobile puzzle genre, traditionally dominated by lifestyle and decoration-themed titles, is experiencing a notable shift toward apocalyptic and zombie-themed content.
- Worldwide consumer spending in zombie and post-apocalyptic themed games reached $180 million in May 2021, marking a 47 percent year-over-year increase.
- 37Games' title 'Puzzles & Survival,' launched in September 2020, generated over $30 million in global revenue across the App Store and Google Play in May 2021.
- Zynga's 'Puzzle Combat,' released globally in April 2021, surpassed $1 million in consumer spending by May 2021, signaling a successful entry into the zombie-themed puzzle niche.
When Trainers' Eyes Meet: Creating Real Time Combat for Pokemon GO
The introduction of real-time combat to Pokémon GO serves as a strategic initiative to bolster player retention and re-engage lapsed users by transitioning from traditional turn-based mechanics to a faster, more interactive system.
- The transition to real-time combat was a strategic move to increase player retention and re-engage lapsed users by shifting away from traditional turn-based mechanics.
- Developers balanced accessibility and competitive depth by combining simple tap-to-attack controls with tactical features like protect shields and secondary move slots.
- To mitigate pay-to-win concerns and ensure competitive integrity, the game utilizes tiered battle leagues (Great, Ultra, and Master) defined by specific combat power caps.
Marvel's Spider-Man AI Postmortem
The development of Marvel’s Spider-Man necessitated a fundamental shift in artificial intelligence architecture to manage the complexity of 64 distinct enemy classes within an open-world environment.
- Insomniac Games utilized a data-driven approach for combat AI, where designers configured complex move sets and combos through data files rather than directly editing behavior trees or finite state machines.
- To prevent combat from feeling stagnant, the team implemented an 'intensity meter' that tracks enemy aggression and triggers special attack sequences or simultaneous strikes when the meter fills.
- The AI combat system manages enemy positioning using a 'hill climber' algorithm that iteratively pushes potential bot locations radially outward to maintain optimal spacing and keep enemies on the navigation mesh.
Middle-earth: Shadow of War: Creating Multi-Character Combat Animations
The development of Middle-earth: Shadow of War centered on the implementation of complex, multi-character combat animations to establish a visceral and brutal aesthetic.
- Monolith Productions managed a high-volume animation pipeline for Middle-earth: Shadow of War by producing 1,200 unique sync-action animations between the player and orcs within a three-year development window.
- To maintain production efficiency, the team utilized a motion capture-first workflow where in-house animators performed the stunts, allowing for rapid iteration and immediate feedback from designers on-site.
- The studio employed a 'destructive' animation workflow that prioritized baking keys and layering poses over traditional non-destructive rigging, enabling animators to quickly adjust timing and weight without getting precious about curve handles.
Mobile Game Taxonomy Report 2021
The mobile gaming landscape underwent a transformative shift in 2020, catalyzed by global lockdowns that accelerated adoption across all major categories.
- Hypercasual games became the dominant volume leader in 2020 with 6.3 billion downloads, a 123% year-over-year increase that surpassed the Arcade genre.
- RPG and Strategy titles maintained their financial stronghold, collectively generating 50% of the total global revenue among top-performing mobile games.
- Simulation games experienced the highest spending growth in 2020, recording a 56% increase in consumer expenditure.
Raport Bieżący Nr 32/2020
The establishment of Septarian Games S.A. on September 9, 2020, marks a strategic expansion for PlayWay S.A. within the Polish game development sector.
- PlayWay S.A. established Septarian Games S.A. on September 9, 2020, as a new joint-stock company in Warsaw with an initial share capital of 105,000 PLN.
- PlayWay S.A. holds a 73.33% majority stake in Septarian Games S.A. through 770,000 Series A shares, while developers own 21.91% and external investors hold 4.76%.
- External investors acquired their 4.76% stake via Series B shares by contributing 1,000,000 PLN, representing a significant premium over the 5,000 PLN nominal value of those shares.
Zawiązanie Septarian Games Sp. z o.o. z siedzibą w Warszawie: 2020
PlayWay S.A. expanded its corporate group through the establishment of a new subsidiary, Septarian Games Sp. z o.o., based in Warsaw, Poland.
- PlayWay S.A. established a new subsidiary, Septarian Games Sp. z o.o., on July 17, 2020, to expand its specialized development portfolio.
- PlayWay S.A. holds a 77% majority stake in the new entity, while the remaining 23% is held by the developers to incentivize creative talent.
- Septarian Games was capitalized with 100,000 PLN, consisting of 1,000 shares valued at 100 PLN each, fully funded through cash contributions.
I Played 1% of Your Games (My Feedback)
Indie game development often falters when creators prioritize visual aesthetics over the fundamental clarity of player experience.
- Prioritize intuitive player experience and clear onboarding over visual aesthetics, as poor communication of core mechanics leads directly to user disengagement.
- Combat systems require strategic depth through diverse enemy types and faster movement mechanics to avoid the stagnation caused by repetitive, low-stakes encounters.
- Meaningful progression systems, such as unlockable abilities, are essential to transition gameplay from passive interaction to a dynamic loop that rewards player skill.
Robocalypse Now: Using Deep Learning to Combat Cheating in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive maintains competitive integrity through a sophisticated, multi-layered anti-cheat strategy that balances technical mitigation with deep learning innovation.
- VACnet, a deep learning model trained on historical human review data, achieves conviction rates between 80% and 95%, significantly outperforming the 15% to 30% success rate of manual player reports.
- The Trust Factor system maintains competitive integrity by isolating suspected cheaters into separate matchmaking pools, effectively containing the impact of malicious actors on the general player base.
- VACnet identifies suspicious behavior by analyzing granular telemetry, including weapon performance, hit results, and player view angles.
Until You Fall: Building Satisfying VR Combat on a Budget
Effective virtual reality combat design relies on prioritizing the core gameplay loop over high-fidelity, physics-based interactions that often introduce unnecessary friction.
- Prioritize the core player fantasy over universal interactivity by cutting secondary VR features that do not directly serve the primary gameplay loop, such as picking up environmental objects or enemy weapons.
- Combat the 'waggle' effect by mechanically incentivizing exaggerated, high-effort movements, ensuring that the most effective way to play the game is also the most physically engaging and visually rewarding.
- Avoid the 'immersion trap' by establishing a baseline for interaction fidelity and removing any features that fall below that threshold, which helps control development scope and prevents gameplay friction.
How to Design Advertising Creatives for Roguelike Games
The purpose of the text is to outline best practices for advertising creatives tailored to roguelike games, emphasizing how these titles can leverage visual and narrative strategies commonly found in medium-to-heavy RPGs.
- Successful roguelike advertisements prioritize high-contrast visuals, saturated colors, and pixel or voxel art styles to capture audience attention.
- Effective creative content focuses on showcasing core gameplay mechanics, walkthroughs, and dramatic battle sequences to highlight the genre's inherent randomness and replayability.
- Developers can reduce psychological barriers to entry by incorporating humor, such as the mixed-reality graphics and voice-overs used in Gumballs & Dungeons.
Companies behind it
As the documents state it.