If there’s one thing I learned from TF2 it’s movement, it really makes the game much more fun, even mobile games such as brawl stars. So here’s my advice : give a specific enemy a complex movement to track you down and swarm you, make them tanky, so if you wanna defend the tower you need to be constantly dodging the swarm and kill the ones that attacks the tower or kill the swarm to concetrate on the main attackers. A mobility option for the player ? I don’t know I’m not a game designer. Anyway nice day :D
Oh shoot the issue you ran into around 1:50 I managed to resolve in a student project - I wish I could remember how, but you're right it's super not obvious how to address the navigation issues in unreal with the existing tools, and trying to solve it manually can get expensive in computing resources
It would be so cool if the enemies worked like the other classes. Like a Scout that tries to get close to you but dies to your sentry; a Pyro that tries to reflect the sentries rockets back at you; a Medic and Heavy combo that work together to destroy your nest with uber, forcing you to deal with them quickly; a Sniper that forces you to change location; Soldiers and Demos that try to destroy your sentry; a Spy that appears basically out of nowhere to sap your sentry or just to backstab you. It could really make it feel like your on an actual tf2 match, having to fight off the entire team by yourself.
Scaley is a sub set of a furry. Both are anthro animals. But furry is also a sub set of a furry. So it just depends on how specific you want to be, like do you want all antho animals or just fluffy ones.
Do you think that you can add a welding gun that functions like the medigun and flamethrower combination. Like it can heal your tower over time and deal damage overtime to enemies.
Since I'm gonna be starting work on a game for a project, I was just thinking about how I'm gonna do the enemy AI... The timing is insane. Can't wait to watch it!
An idea for an enemy is a guy that is holding tnt and their only goal is to run to the tower to blow it up, but if you kill it before it can get to the tower then it will drop the tnt and you can pick it up and throw it, or it will drop to the floor and blow up any enemies that was nearby.
In terms of game direction a-la 12:30, I think all of those are perfectly viable, even simultaneously. Maybe you can switch up the goal every now and then to give an unexpected variety to it.
Feature idea: In a recent Shounic video he tested if kicking sentries to move them was a balanced feature for TF2. It could work as an interesting last resort for saving your gun in this game, maybe it has a long cool down or damages the gun a bit. It could add to defensive play, kinda like the wrangler shield, rescue ranger, and short circuit!
We love shounic in this house (literally, according to TH-cam shounic is the channel most of my audience watches haha). Implementing silly ideas is one of the main reasons I think a singleplayer spinoff of Engineer could work so well.
I really like the idea of the AI interpreting the player and the turret completely differently. For example, bots going after the capture point might ignore the turret, as it isn't a "player", but bots hunting down the player might also go after the turret since it belongs to the player, meaning you can't just set and forget it entirely either, it could give you a range of strategies for different levels and enemy types
0:45 rain world mentioned anyway, great devlog as always! looove people infodumping about cool gamedev concepts. To answer the questions of "how many enemies should there be?" and "what should the base be?" i think you should have a brainstorming session (this is obvious and maybe unhelpful, i know, bear with me for a second) - i would personally first try to answer the simpler question - "what should the base be?" - as it seems like a conceptual thing that will help make other pieces fall into place. Pick out a few options you really like and start weighing them - pros and cons and whatever. Like, for example, having a separate base that you and your sentry must protect would lead to more multi-tasking as the core gameplay loop (which personally to me sounds super fun), while having the sentry be the base will make the game feel more like a survival (and maybe resource-management?) game. After having weighed the pros and cons of each option you will *probably* have an easier time picking between them. Then, the next question is made much simpler - if you want the base to be separate - you might not even need that many enemy types - as long as there's something to make the player stretch their attention thin, the gameloop is kept tense and exciting! And if you want the base to be the sentry - then more enemies is probably the way to go, as otherwise combat might get stale after a while ^This is generally how i make my choices when i can't decide on something. If you wanna go the extra mile to be extra sure you made the "correct" choice (there *isn't* a correct choice - but i mean like, a choice that you won't regret, i guess? its unlikely to happen anyway), you can even try setting up a design doc and lay out a bunch of mock-ups and stuff there. It will help you take a look at all of these decisions as one greater picture rather than isolated choices
The defensive / offensive question near the end is easy, it's like asking nest engineer or battle engineer, give us subclasses, so many, please? Pretty please???
Looking at the bingo, I think the most you could get with one commision is muscular rule 63 scaley version of Mike(deltarune fan boss, so it counts) buying Wonder Bread in a weirdly specific pose that is a meme that died 4 months ago. If only I had the money to commission that.
Fire video, i live from nerd talk. Suggestion: An enemy that doesn't do much on it's own, but protects other enemies. (will refer to as "medic" from now) Two ideas on how you could do this: 1. Ultrakill Idol with legs that has to be within a certain range. Like an infinite übercharge, that doesn't über the medic. 2. Has shield/is meat shield. Medic near other enemies and protects. Maybe a breakable shield and then turns into weak melee enemy? Or like a PvZ potato on legs? I would recommend coding a "hierarchy" system as seen in Ultrakill. Example: Enemy 1 - weak, rank 1 Enemy 2 - medium, rank 2 Enemy 3 - strong, rank 3 The medic chooses the enemy with the highest rank to protect.
I think it'd be a good idea to make a small campaign that explores multiple game-mode ideas to help keep things varied. You could try borrowing from Titanfall 2 , as it'd let you make "TF2 inspired game" jokes but more importantly it'd let you characterize levels around how they introduce enemies similarly to how Halo, Doom and Half-Life have entire segments of levels dedicated to introducing new enemy variants and how to fight them. I can imagine having a segment where you have to push towards an objective/generally push forward while a few spinbots (Sniper Equivalents, they use piss as an energy source) with good vantage points prevent you from easily accessing certain areas until you utilize a level gimmick, newly unlocked ability or find a new trick with the sentry.
I have no formal programming knowledge, but I understand its logic. A feature I think could be added is enemy's aggressiveness priority, where enemies are assigned a number (either randomly or based on type) and depending on how high it is decides how likely they are to attack you vs commit more to destruction. Like maybe some would initially attack the tower (or even patrol), and then aggro you when they see you, while others are more set on attacking the objective, and only aggro if you attack them or get too close. Also for enemy diversity have some go near where they last saw you, and then "search" my going to random areas nearby, or more "cowardly" enemies where if they see you or saw an enemy die, they instead run away from where they saw it. Overall really cool game! Looking forward to hearing more on its progress!
mabye idk something like the tf2 capture the flag. where the enemys have to capture your inteligence and bring it back to there spawn idk. and you have to defend your inteligence.
Whenever you brought up how you were basically being commissioned to draw, I thought that you were just going to start doing commissions. I have never been more surprised.
Your videos are such a delight dude. Even the wee orange guy you created to promote NordVPN is absorbingly adorable. Seeing both Homestuck and UT/DT on the bingo card had me in stitches. Technical question / idea: Would it be feasible to make the AI select a cluster of "bests fits" for its placement logic, and then shift between them stochastically every couple of seconds? I'm thinking that when the Wall-E''s surround the tower, they should shuffle in a ring around it rather than standing stock still, and when they chase the player they should again strafe about. It's a good habit for anything in a fight, and adds some depth to fighting them.
It would be very easy to program that using behavior trees! Instead of "find a random spot" -> "attack", you could easily loop that and say "find a random spot" -> "attack" -> "find a new random spot" -> "attack" forever
@@JayTheDevGuy Awesome! I see another benefit to that approach too: For enemies that are meant to be dumb or clumsy, you can make them stop attacking to move/strafe/reposition and stop strafing to attack, maybe even with some decision lag inbetween - while smoother and smarter enemies keep strafing and firing constantly for a high-pressure threat.
I love the bingo card idea, so silly. Also, I like the idea that the Sentry and you are like, life-linked somehow, with the tower being the sentry idea you mentioned. If you die you obviously lose, but if the sentry dies, you lose too, meaning you have to balance defending it and letting it defend you!
As a hopeful developer to-be, this channel is super helpful. Enemy AI is something I have ALWAYS struggled with, and this video helped me get some ideas as to how I might code enemies. Also that bingo card was awesome. You should end your next videos showing how much it's filled out since the last.
Honestly, the thing you need to protect being the turret would be cool. Upgrading it and watching your hard work pay off by being able to see your turret protecting itself would be really satisfying. Being able to choose different upgrade trees for your turret would be cool and give the player more expression in the way they want to play. Maybe you could have a main turret to protect but you could spend resources to make much weaker turrets that you can freely place to thin out or distract enemies. Maybe a cardboard turret that doesn't shoot but since enemies will target turrets they'll be distracted by it and move to break them. That'd be fun, imagine setting a simple trap by having the enemies gather around the decoy and if you chose an explosive upgrade to your main turret it'll blow them all up at once! Idk, no matter what you do this game seems fun.
So I've got a handful of enemy ideas: Dumbotrons: Swarm type robots, they only care about the objective and they ignore the player/towers. Melee only. They lack self preservation. (I recall one of Open Fortress's gamemode has unique cannon fodder robots with TV heads, maybe they could look like those?) FighterMann: Human enemy, they go for the objective by default but they will attack the player/towers, they have better weapons and more health than the dumbo's but are fewer in number They consider self preservation. Swarm-Choppers: Drone swarm, they would resemble the R-CAT Sentry + the "Medic Slasher" manhacks from Wrench In The Gears, they have pathetically low health, excel in numbers, deal little damage, they only really draw fire for other enemies to survive. Barrier Tank: Think MVM Boss Tank but it projects an energy shield in the direction of the most damaging tower it is being attacked by, other enemies use it to take cover and get close to the players defenses. The tank slowly moves along a set path, damages and destroys anything in its path although it may be slowen down depending on the obstacle. The shield may or may not be destroyable. Tank has medium health, main purpose is to force the player out of their defenses. Dropship: Vtol Heavy Helicopter, can fly in over the players defenses to drop enemies. Could be too unfair though. Jumperjacks: Either bots or humans, they can either jump high places or can fly in the air for extended periods of time, they only use projectile weapons, so think Jetpack Soldiers or Demos. Support Car: Armored Support Vehicle with a dispenser attached in order to heal nearby enemies, Titan-Naut: Sorta similar looking to Michael Donvius's Deadnauts in Wrench in The Gears, they use heavy weaponry, they ignore the player and prioritize towers, as they have an escort, they may have wind-up fire Gatling Guns, Rocketpods, or Grenade Casters. They are tall enough to shoot over obstacles.
This is so cool! I love the style and the overall feel of this ganeso far, and you seem so talented at what you're doing! It really inspires me to go make stuff of my own!
I'd love to see an enemy that mimics the behaviors of a C&D spy, trying to escape your FOV and hiding as much as possible, then disabling and/or damaging your sentry while you aren't looking. So while you can be very aggressive, you have to keep with your sentry in mind otherwise ur gonna lose it.
I think personally making this a defense-oriented game where you have to protect a large, static point would be a good idea. Maybe a small tower that's trying to send a "shutdown/kill code" to the enemies if they're robots that they're trying to destroy, and you have to manage the defense of areas to protect it. Funnily enough I would recommend looking at both Dungeon Defenders and Bloons TD6 as inspiration for different levels and layouts difficulty-wise, but in general I don't think there's enough of these 1st person tower defense sort of games. Once you're comfortable with a state of a defense-oriented game you could always make a game mode that's offense oriented, having the enemies guard a fortress or base and you have to infiltrate it to destroy their "big rock/crystal/satellite" at the center of it. Give them patrol routes and make it so there's multiple ways you can get it in and it'd almost be like a more action-focused Hitman game. Obviously that's a lot to consider, but it's what came to mind when you asked if it should be more Offense or Defense oriented gameplay wise.
I'm liking these videos so far. The perception component makes me wonder if there's a way to have regular enemies act as spotters for enemies that lob attacks over terrain. I'm guessing there's a way to do that with the pseudo hive mind stuff you mentioned. Huh, now that's an idea. A robot duo of a mobile but defenseless spotter and a lumbering attacker that work together to flush the player out. Speaking of ideas, I would say that a good idea for the tower would be to have it be something important and helpful to the player both to make them want to protect it for reasons beyond just "don't lose", and to make sure the player keeps coming back to it. My reasoning for the latter is that if a bot slipped past the player while said player was running around doing other stuff, the player will have a reason to check up on the tower regularly. Being able to drop off collected objects, refill their ammo and/or health, or just do a funny animation where they chug a beer could all work. Maybe big pile of dispensers?
I feel there should definitely be an element of choosing where to place the turret(s) around the map, although I like the idea of the tower itself being a turret? Maybe it can defend itself a bit, or otherwise attack enemies, but you need to use your gun and your own hand-placed turrets to keep it from being overwhelmed…
Keep up the hard work Jay! I love seeing not only the progress of your game, but also what you've learned (because I'm secretly learning along as well). I had no idea how to even approach learning enemy AI, and no I have some topics to research! As an artist in many fields, video game dev as one of them, I seriously commend your hard work in these videos, game dev and drawing journeys. Love to see what you have in store next!
What I'd like to see is a optional defense/offense playstyle, like, the player can chose how they want to handle with the goal of "protecting the tower", you give them the tools necessary for either or and let them go wild. I guess this is more sandbox-y then single-player MVM parody though.
Just a thought; Perhapps you could look at an ol' flashgame called Mechquest for some inspiration? Being able to customize the turret with different "weapon slots" would be neato!
I would love to see some more tower defense mechanics in the future!! Having new sentries and buildings while managing your own character sounds like management hell, but also what makes engineer in TF2 fun!!
I would recommend multiple gamemodes: just like TF2. So far I have 3 ideas Point defense: Works just like attack/defend in TF2 but you are specifically defending. Research Defense: Defend a research station until it finishes creating a briefcase full of intelligence. At certain points in time items spawn at specific places on the map which the player can collect to either to buff research speed or give a one time progression bonus. Thus allowing players tactical options. Restore the facility: This is more of a survival/horror type mission, where you struggle to keep your hp up and find enough resources: you spawn into the map and must repair a certain number of objects in the map using metal. Of course you don't start with enough metal to do them all so you need to scavenge. All the enemies in this mode start on the map in an inactive state until the player walks into their line of sight or repairs something that wakes them up. No more enemies will spawn during the round but the player does not get any respawns either. Both death and running out of metal before completing enough repairs are failures.
A rule many of the developers I follow have an solid rule: Smart pathing, inaccurate as f * * k with ranged weapons: And this honestly works a lot better than what valve puts into Mann VS machine. Sniper bots tend to blend into the drab settings way too often and can just pick off the entire team, it's the reason killfeeds were never removed from MVM. You either make them an threat up close, or such a hindrance at a range that players give up. Or you find an sweet in between where they can swap from ranged to melee and still pose some challenge. A lot of devs struggle with this: But I know you'll get there.
Part of the problem I'm facing, and I imagine you're facing a bit too, is that it's hard to tell when something is sufficiently capable for your project while also not being too complex. It's really easy to start looking into different behavior methods and think "oh that does exactly what I want it to do," but then be something that takes months, if not years to properly develop. On the other hand, you find stuff that is the right complexity for how much you want to invest in the project, but then it doesn't deliver the kind of behavior you want. I also have the problem where I despise the idea of rewriting code later that I spend too long discerning the right route forward that I forget what I was doing to begin with.
Oh my god I LOVE your style!!! It's so pleasing to watch and the art is lovely 💛 Congrats on figuring out the AI system! Looks very promising for future enemies :3 And also nice bingo lol! Hope you get a bingo soon! (Either a diagonal or the UT/DR + Sonic OC row looks with the best odds) Also Rain World mentioned!!! 0:45 peak (ok genuinely the cheaper plane tickets is something i actually something i'm interested on, very much thanks for letting us know!)
You really need more attention on your channel, your videos are absolutely amazing and i wish more people knew about this channel, i am also curious how the Tf2 Engineer Singleplayer game is gonna be like. Keep it up man.
I know that in single-player combat games with levels, varied objectives can be good to have, some more defensive, some more offensive. This also ties into team fortress two with there varied objectives.
That sponsorship segment was hilarious, I actually watched it Btw, I love that you read all the comments, I like seeing creators that actively interact with their community Do u read ever edit tho?
My suggestion is to have a WHOLE RANGE OF SENTRY GUNS (basic offensive, defensive that protect the player or the other buildings, supportive that heal other buildings, etc) But have the VERY first sentry be the tower you’d have to defend
Personally I think for the should the sentry be the base point you made my take is have a sentry that can be placed/replaced and destroyed like engie’s but have a base be equipped with a “heavy” sentry equipped with like a mortar or something for some fun extra firepower. Good luck on the bingo!
it would be cool if you added a feature that diverted some of the power from your sentry gun into a shield that gives your tower more health, but lowers the damage dealt by your sentry for more hands-on horde control
Loved the video and learned a lot! I have some ideas for you (since you asked for it). If the player's goal is to survive waves, one approach I thought of is to make the turret offer additional benefits besides just shooting enemies. For example, it could provide a small damage resistance or heal the player when they are in close range (or something similar). However, when the turret gets destroyed, all these benefits disappear. Maybe the enemy can even build a small turret of their own if they stand where your sentry was for a certain amount of time. I want the player to have an incentive to keep the sentry alive. Perhaps moving away from the turret could draw enemy attention, but then the player would lose the healing benefit, so they would need to make strategic choices depending on the situation.
Suggestion: You have mentioned that you might have a tower to defend as an objective. So what if that tower was a giant dispenser, which will heal you and will be the only way to heal (that would solve a problem of making an engineer nest), as well as gives you lots of ammo and metal, and (If they get added) recharge any gadgets or speed up its recharge. To balance it and so that it wont become just more powerful version of dispenser, it will have some sort of aura that prevents you from building near it. (This will force engineers to leave their gun or leave with it, giving an opportunity for enemies to advance) But to maintain self sustain of a player, you will still have a mini dispenser, that could be used as a wall (with a reasonable amount of hp) and gives less metal and ammo, and no healing. And maybe an ability to make teleport network. I hope that this might inspire you, in which way you want to take your game and over all make the game more fun. Wishing you the best and waiting paitiently for this game to realease.
My thought is to do something MvM-like for the types of enemies. You get one type that doesn’t have much health, but moves incredibly fast and blindly rushes the objective for an instantly game-ending attack You can get one that has the singular goal of rushing down the player to swarm and kill them You can get one that can place its own turrets to defend the enemy spawn point
Finally, I get to catch a JayTheDevGuy video almost as soon as it comes out. Also, your videos are super helpful to me, someone who's working on a shooter as well. I especially like the one on crosshairs.
I think having the AI check for other entities EVERY frame would significantly effect performance when trying to spawn a large amount of enemies in one level. lowering it down to, like, 20 would help with optomization
YES!!! LETS GO!!! HES BACK!!! (Edit) An idea can be that the engineer is defending something like a small building with the word “Texas” on a big sign, or something like a bacon factory or just the red/blu intel.
I think making multiple maps with different objectives would be a cool idea. Kinda like TF2. One map could have you defend your turret, but you can't move it. Another being you have to defend a tower, or multiple towers. Basically if you can't decide on one thing do them all!
I wonder if the game will have the same elements of engineer that give me satisfaction like stretching your presence with buildings or the sense of progression that comes with leveling your buildings, with the sentry as an example you can see it gain another barrel and rockets with 3 instead of the normal +1=increased stats with no change the gun itself, and while it gets stronger you as an engineer still need to work around its core limitation of being an immobile gun with limitation to its range, ammo and turn speed. Ultimately you can still walk around the map without reducing the effectiveness of you or your buildings kinda like giving boring tasks like holding an angle or supplying nearby teammates to robots you constructed. With all that said I wonder if this game will encourage play styles like turtleing were your dispenser is best placed at your back at all times and your sentry’s so good at killing all the enemies that maintaining becomes the most effective strategy, of course you could force the engineer to grab pickups around the map or adding an artillery enemy that punishes you for bunkering down, but how would you do it in a way that isn’t tedious. Or maybe add conveyer belts and moving platforms to build on maybe give the engineer map specific buildings he can invest time and resources into like elevators and security doors all of which have there costs and rewards that a player needs to assess to plan out where their time and resources should be allocated. Rant over, good luck on that bingo card.
Careful lad. Finding out what financial stability you can get talking about your game's development rather than actually making the game has devoured one too many developers.
If you made the sentry gun the main defense target, you could add lots of interesting upgrade paths where you spec more into the base than your own turrets / gear. I think it's definitely something to consider
Honestly one of the few TH-cam channels that makes me light up when I see them in my notifications. Every video has such an interesting topic at hand, and actually teaches me something! I’d definitely share my social security number with you
Since this game is orientated around the Sentry, I'd say having the Sentry be the thing you have to defend works great, but you could also spice it up by having other "objectives" that can be defended optionally, but if managed can help you defend your sentry. Maybe a building that acts as a Dispenser, or a fortification that gives an attack boost to the Sentry when its near it. If the Sentry is destroyed, its game over, but the other things getting destroyed slowly makes things harder.
What wtf he has 40k subscribers I didn't realise congratulations! literally subscribed on your second video, you have made good content, you definitely deserve 40k (I would argue more but oh well)
Save yourself a trip to France with NordVPN.com/jaythedevguy and a 30 day money-back guarantee :]
Hi jay love your videos Uhm please teach me blender
is that wikipedia article real 🗿
I would rather go to France than buy Nord VPN, but thanks for the offer :)
Unfortunately I already live there 😔
If I see an in video ad, close the tab immediately
What if the AI is too smart and realizes the only winning move is to not play the game, before promptly disconnecting from the server.
Honestly we could all learn a little from that
when's the tic-tac-toe function getting added to unreal
war games reference?
@@willcubemakes Matthew Bruhderick.
@@disappointedcucumber knew it!
The main goal is never having the ai be smart, it’s always having it be fun.
Sick, can we explain that goal to everyone everywhere regardless of what the AI is for?
Why Midjourney will only ever succeed at shitposts ^
Really going with the idea that: " If its not Fun, why bother? "
“Ai should assist, not replace” - sun tzu or whatever
I like making an ai that is sophisticated but also stupid.
JayTheDevGuy cancelled for using AI in their game
the “I need subscribers, not subs” joke is the most clever shit I’ve ever heard and I giggled out loud like a goblin when I heard it.
So glad I'm capturing the goblin demographic with this content
@@JayTheDevGuyyou have full support from the goblin community
immediately unfollowed on myspace and blocked on IRC, refusing subs is the DOMbest thing i've ever heard
@@swedneck i.. cant tell if you're being sarcastic.
@@enbybunny9940 the clowns are also along for the ride! (dont worry about the car becoming "too full", we have a knack for fitting into them easily)
this is fr the most underrated channel its crazy
Thanks for saying something nice to a stranger on the internet :]
@@JayTheDevGuy I love saying nice things to strangers on the internet!!!11
If there’s one thing I learned from TF2 it’s movement, it really makes the game much more fun, even mobile games such as brawl stars.
So here’s my advice : give a specific enemy a complex movement to track you down and swarm you, make them tanky, so if you wanna defend the tower you need to be constantly dodging the swarm and kill the ones that attacks the tower or kill the swarm to concetrate on the main attackers.
A mobility option for the player ? I don’t know I’m not a game designer.
Anyway nice day :D
Oh shoot the issue you ran into around 1:50 I managed to resolve in a student project - I wish I could remember how, but you're right it's super not obvious how to address the navigation issues in unreal with the existing tools, and trying to solve it manually can get expensive in computing resources
It would be so cool if the enemies worked like the other classes.
Like a Scout that tries to get close to you but dies to your sentry;
a Pyro that tries to reflect the sentries rockets back at you;
a Medic and Heavy combo that work together to destroy your nest with uber, forcing you to deal with them quickly;
a Sniper that forces you to change location;
Soldiers and Demos that try to destroy your sentry;
a Spy that appears basically out of nowhere to sap your sentry or just to backstab you.
It could really make it feel like your on an actual tf2 match, having to fight off the entire team by yourself.
🤔
If i wanted to fight off the entire team myself i would just play upward
How about simple enemies only having partial semblance to the tf2 classes but leaving near 1:1 clones be boss encounters.
Don’t forget Demoknight!
He do be zooming
If your AI isn't smart enough, you may want to consider finding less smart players instead
I love how you used a brain of a koala for the thumbnail
That's a photo of my brain I took it out for this video
did you just. eyeball that or...?
@@comicalbanana just started playing Mann vs Machine and it kinda slipped out on its own
@@JayTheDevGuy average mvm expirience
@@JayTheDevGuy Average Pyro player in MvM (they use -1 braincells)
12:57 even this one?
Glad i could be jays first furry commission (its the first step to him getting a femboy fox fursona)
I'll always remember you for this ✊
Man I haven’t even watched the full video yet and now I’m both scared and looking forward to it
You should take the first step to getting some help
@@catpfphavercounterpoint: furries based
@@zackbuildit88 It wasn't an anti furry thing. It was an anti turning someone into a femboy fox thing
Scaley is a sub set of a furry. Both are anthro animals. But furry is also a sub set of a furry. So it just depends on how specific you want to be, like do you want all antho animals or just fluffy ones.
Do you think that you can add a welding gun that functions like the medigun and flamethrower combination. Like it can heal your tower over time and deal damage overtime to enemies.
Since I'm gonna be starting work on a game for a project, I was just thinking about how I'm gonna do the enemy AI... The timing is insane. Can't wait to watch it!
Good luck!
@@JayTheDevGuy Thanks man! Same to you!
An idea for an enemy is a guy that is holding tnt and their only goal is to run to the tower to blow it up, but if you kill it before it can get to the tower then it will drop the tnt and you can pick it up and throw it, or it will drop to the floor and blow up any enemies that was nearby.
🤔👀
In terms of game direction a-la 12:30, I think all of those are perfectly viable, even simultaneously. Maybe you can switch up the goal every now and then to give an unexpected variety to it.
Feature idea: In a recent Shounic video he tested if kicking sentries to move them was a balanced feature for TF2. It could work as an interesting last resort for saving your gun in this game, maybe it has a long cool down or damages the gun a bit. It could add to defensive play, kinda like the wrangler shield, rescue ranger, and short circuit!
We love shounic in this house (literally, according to TH-cam shounic is the channel most of my audience watches haha). Implementing silly ideas is one of the main reasons I think a singleplayer spinoff of Engineer could work so well.
I really like the idea of the AI interpreting the player and the turret completely differently. For example, bots going after the capture point might ignore the turret, as it isn't a "player", but bots hunting down the player might also go after the turret since it belongs to the player, meaning you can't just set and forget it entirely either, it could give you a range of strategies for different levels and enemy types
🤔👀
Not the murrlogic spot on the bingo 😭😭😭
Glad someone got it
11:46 what if you made said grunt but hes so big he pushes other enemies out of the way
🤔👀👀👀
0:45 rain world mentioned
anyway, great devlog as always! looove people infodumping about cool gamedev concepts.
To answer the questions of "how many enemies should there be?" and "what should the base be?" i think you should have a brainstorming session (this is obvious and maybe unhelpful, i know, bear with me for a second) - i would personally first try to answer the simpler question - "what should the base be?" - as it seems like a conceptual thing that will help make other pieces fall into place. Pick out a few options you really like and start weighing them - pros and cons and whatever. Like, for example, having a separate base that you and your sentry must protect would lead to more multi-tasking as the core gameplay loop (which personally to me sounds super fun), while having the sentry be the base will make the game feel more like a survival (and maybe resource-management?) game. After having weighed the pros and cons of each option you will *probably* have an easier time picking between them. Then, the next question is made much simpler - if you want the base to be separate - you might not even need that many enemy types - as long as there's something to make the player stretch their attention thin, the gameloop is kept tense and exciting! And if you want the base to be the sentry - then more enemies is probably the way to go, as otherwise combat might get stale after a while
^This is generally how i make my choices when i can't decide on something. If you wanna go the extra mile to be extra sure you made the "correct" choice (there *isn't* a correct choice - but i mean like, a choice that you won't regret, i guess? its unlikely to happen anyway), you can even try setting up a design doc and lay out a bunch of mock-ups and stuff there. It will help you take a look at all of these decisions as one greater picture rather than isolated choices
This is great feedback, and glad you enjoyed the vid :]
3:00 this what TF2 uses for teammates when you walk though them
So good choice
I don't actually know how to code I just watch shounic videos and copy+paste into my game
The defensive / offensive question near the end is easy, it's like asking nest engineer or battle engineer, give us subclasses, so many, please? Pretty please???
we trying
This guy can't miss with these videos they're always so peak I'm so excited for this game
Thank you that's really nice :]
Looking at the bingo, I think the most you could get with one commision is muscular rule 63 scaley version of Mike(deltarune fan boss, so it counts) buying Wonder Bread in a weirdly specific pose that is a meme that died 4 months ago. If only I had the money to commission that.
Can't wait to see the bingo meta evolve, thank you for your contribution
Fire video, i live from nerd talk.
Suggestion: An enemy that doesn't do much on it's own, but protects other enemies. (will refer to as "medic" from now) Two ideas on how you could do this:
1. Ultrakill Idol with legs that has to be within a certain range. Like an infinite übercharge, that doesn't über the medic.
2. Has shield/is meat shield. Medic near other enemies and protects. Maybe a breakable shield and then turns into weak melee enemy? Or like a PvZ potato on legs?
I would recommend coding a "hierarchy" system as seen in Ultrakill.
Example:
Enemy 1 - weak, rank 1
Enemy 2 - medium, rank 2
Enemy 3 - strong, rank 3
The medic chooses the enemy with the highest rank to protect.
4:15 *since half life
I think it'd be a good idea to make a small campaign that explores multiple game-mode ideas to help keep things varied. You could try borrowing from Titanfall 2 , as it'd let you make "TF2 inspired game" jokes but more importantly it'd let you characterize levels around how they introduce enemies similarly to how Halo, Doom and Half-Life have entire segments of levels dedicated to introducing new enemy variants and how to fight them. I can imagine having a segment where you have to push towards an objective/generally push forward while a few spinbots (Sniper Equivalents, they use piss as an energy source) with good vantage points prevent you from easily accessing certain areas until you utilize a level gimmick, newly unlocked ability or find a new trick with the sentry.
5:05 GO TO FRANCE!!?? NOOOOOOO
Now this is epic
cipe
Epic? How about Epic: MegaGrant recipient (i need money)
I have no formal programming knowledge, but I understand its logic. A feature I think could be added is enemy's aggressiveness priority, where enemies are assigned a number (either randomly or based on type) and depending on how high it is decides how likely they are to attack you vs commit more to destruction. Like maybe some would initially attack the tower (or even patrol), and then aggro you when they see you, while others are more set on attacking the objective, and only aggro if you attack them or get too close. Also for enemy diversity have some go near where they last saw you, and then "search" my going to random areas nearby, or more "cowardly" enemies where if they see you or saw an enemy die, they instead run away from where they saw it.
Overall really cool game! Looking forward to hearing more on its progress!
The player can be defensive or offensive but under no circumstance, must NEVER teleport bread
🫡🙏🙏
lol. the secret notes in the search bar whenever a youtube video is playing on screen. very cool.
;]
mabye idk something like the tf2 capture the flag. where the enemys have to capture your inteligence and bring it back to there spawn idk. and you have to defend your inteligence.
🤔
Reverse MVM
Whenever you brought up how you were basically being commissioned to draw, I thought that you were just going to start doing commissions. I have never been more surprised.
Your videos are such a delight dude. Even the wee orange guy you created to promote NordVPN is absorbingly adorable. Seeing both Homestuck and UT/DT on the bingo card had me in stitches.
Technical question / idea: Would it be feasible to make the AI select a cluster of "bests fits" for its placement logic, and then shift between them stochastically every couple of seconds? I'm thinking that when the Wall-E''s surround the tower, they should shuffle in a ring around it rather than standing stock still, and when they chase the player they should again strafe about. It's a good habit for anything in a fight, and adds some depth to fighting them.
It would be very easy to program that using behavior trees! Instead of "find a random spot" -> "attack", you could easily loop that and say "find a random spot" -> "attack" -> "find a new random spot" -> "attack" forever
@@JayTheDevGuy Awesome! I see another benefit to that approach too: For enemies that are meant to be dumb or clumsy, you can make them stop attacking to move/strafe/reposition and stop strafing to attack, maybe even with some decision lag inbetween - while smoother and smarter enemies keep strafing and firing constantly for a high-pressure threat.
If it isn't practical to make smart AI, a work-around is to make your levels less complex so that your AI can get away with being more simple.
I love the bingo card idea, so silly. Also, I like the idea that the Sentry and you are like, life-linked somehow, with the tower being the sentry idea you mentioned. If you die you obviously lose, but if the sentry dies, you lose too, meaning you have to balance defending it and letting it defend you!
As a hopeful developer to-be, this channel is super helpful. Enemy AI is something I have ALWAYS struggled with, and this video helped me get some ideas as to how I might code enemies. Also that bingo card was awesome. You should end your next videos showing how much it's filled out since the last.
Enemy AI is hard!
Honestly, the thing you need to protect being the turret would be cool. Upgrading it and watching your hard work pay off by being able to see your turret protecting itself would be really satisfying. Being able to choose different upgrade trees for your turret would be cool and give the player more expression in the way they want to play.
Maybe you could have a main turret to protect but you could spend resources to make much weaker turrets that you can freely place to thin out or distract enemies. Maybe a cardboard turret that doesn't shoot but since enemies will target turrets they'll be distracted by it and move to break them. That'd be fun, imagine setting a simple trap by having the enemies gather around the decoy and if you chose an explosive upgrade to your main turret it'll blow them all up at once! Idk, no matter what you do this game seems fun.
The bingo thing is actually hilarious! Loved the vid m8, keep it up! ♥♥♥
So I've got a handful of enemy ideas:
Dumbotrons: Swarm type robots, they only care about the objective and they ignore the player/towers. Melee only. They lack self preservation. (I recall one of Open Fortress's gamemode has unique cannon fodder robots with TV heads, maybe they could look like those?)
FighterMann: Human enemy, they go for the objective by default but they will attack the player/towers, they have better weapons and more health than the dumbo's but are fewer in number They consider self preservation.
Swarm-Choppers: Drone swarm, they would resemble the R-CAT Sentry + the "Medic Slasher" manhacks from Wrench In The Gears, they have pathetically low health, excel in numbers, deal little damage, they only really draw fire for other enemies to survive.
Barrier Tank: Think MVM Boss Tank but it projects an energy shield in the direction of the most damaging tower it is being attacked by, other enemies use it to take cover and get close to the players defenses. The tank slowly moves along a set path, damages and destroys anything in its path although it may be slowen down depending on the obstacle. The shield may or may not be destroyable. Tank has medium health, main purpose is to force the player out of their defenses.
Dropship: Vtol Heavy Helicopter, can fly in over the players defenses to drop enemies. Could be too unfair though.
Jumperjacks: Either bots or humans, they can either jump high places or can fly in the air for extended periods of time, they only use projectile weapons, so think Jetpack Soldiers or Demos.
Support Car: Armored Support Vehicle with a dispenser attached in order to heal nearby enemies,
Titan-Naut: Sorta similar looking to Michael Donvius's Deadnauts in Wrench in The Gears, they use heavy weaponry, they ignore the player and prioritize towers, as they have an escort, they may have wind-up fire Gatling Guns, Rocketpods, or Grenade Casters. They are tall enough to shoot over obstacles.
This is so cool! I love the style and the overall feel of this ganeso far, and you seem so talented at what you're doing! It really inspires me to go make stuff of my own!
I'd love to see an enemy that mimics the behaviors of a C&D spy, trying to escape your FOV and hiding as much as possible, then disabling and/or damaging your sentry while you aren't looking. So while you can be very aggressive, you have to keep with your sentry in mind otherwise ur gonna lose it.
Suggestion, a boss enemy that spawns you a friendly turret if you kill it!
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I think personally making this a defense-oriented game where you have to protect a large, static point would be a good idea. Maybe a small tower that's trying to send a "shutdown/kill code" to the enemies if they're robots that they're trying to destroy, and you have to manage the defense of areas to protect it.
Funnily enough I would recommend looking at both Dungeon Defenders and Bloons TD6 as inspiration for different levels and layouts difficulty-wise, but in general I don't think there's enough of these 1st person tower defense sort of games.
Once you're comfortable with a state of a defense-oriented game you could always make a game mode that's offense oriented, having the enemies guard a fortress or base and you have to infiltrate it to destroy their "big rock/crystal/satellite" at the center of it. Give them patrol routes and make it so there's multiple ways you can get it in and it'd almost be like a more action-focused Hitman game.
Obviously that's a lot to consider, but it's what came to mind when you asked if it should be more Offense or Defense oriented gameplay wise.
Make the player protect a teleported because like someone said, sentries kill dispensers save people and teles win games
It’s funny cause it’s obvious that there is no one solution to game design, even when you hit a wall, there is probably a creative way around it
the base could be a factory/workshop, like really big dispenser or something
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I'm liking these videos so far. The perception component makes me wonder if there's a way to have regular enemies act as spotters for enemies that lob attacks over terrain. I'm guessing there's a way to do that with the pseudo hive mind stuff you mentioned. Huh, now that's an idea. A robot duo of a mobile but defenseless spotter and a lumbering attacker that work together to flush the player out.
Speaking of ideas, I would say that a good idea for the tower would be to have it be something important and helpful to the player both to make them want to protect it for reasons beyond just "don't lose", and to make sure the player keeps coming back to it. My reasoning for the latter is that if a bot slipped past the player while said player was running around doing other stuff, the player will have a reason to check up on the tower regularly. Being able to drop off collected objects, refill their ammo and/or health, or just do a funny animation where they chug a beer could all work. Maybe big pile of dispensers?
the bit about an enemy running EQS around the player makes me wonder about enemies that use melee weapons
I feel there should definitely be an element of choosing where to place the turret(s) around the map, although I like the idea of the tower itself being a turret? Maybe it can defend itself a bit, or otherwise attack enemies, but you need to use your gun and your own hand-placed turrets to keep it from being overwhelmed…
Keep up the hard work Jay! I love seeing not only the progress of your game, but also what you've learned (because I'm secretly learning along as well). I had no idea how to even approach learning enemy AI, and no I have some topics to research! As an artist in many fields, video game dev as one of them, I seriously commend your hard work in these videos, game dev and drawing journeys. Love to see what you have in store next!
Thanks that's really nice to say :]
What I'd like to see is a optional defense/offense playstyle, like, the player can chose how they want to handle with the goal of "protecting the tower", you give them the tools necessary for either or and let them go wild. I guess this is more sandbox-y then single-player MVM parody though.
Love your channel! As someone who is trying to get into gamedev, and a little art as well, I find your videos very inspirational! Thank you!
Just a thought; Perhapps you could look at an ol' flashgame called Mechquest for some inspiration? Being able to customize the turret with different "weapon slots" would be neato!
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I love your videos and your game looks amazing! Congrats on being such a great game developer!
I would love to see some more tower defense mechanics in the future!! Having new sentries and buildings while managing your own character sounds like management hell, but also what makes engineer in TF2 fun!!
I would recommend multiple gamemodes: just like TF2. So far I have 3 ideas
Point defense: Works just like attack/defend in TF2 but you are specifically defending.
Research Defense: Defend a research station until it finishes creating a briefcase full of intelligence. At certain points in time items spawn at specific places on the map which the player can collect to either to buff research speed or give a one time progression bonus. Thus allowing players tactical options.
Restore the facility: This is more of a survival/horror type mission, where you struggle to keep your hp up and find enough resources:
you spawn into the map and must repair a certain number of objects in the map using metal. Of course you don't start with enough metal to do them all so you need to scavenge. All the enemies in this mode start on the map in an inactive state until the player walks into their line of sight or repairs something that wakes them up. No more enemies will spawn during the round but the player does not get any respawns either. Both death and running out of metal before completing enough repairs are failures.
4:40 That was the most clever segway into a sponsor I've seen
Payload defense, I don't know how hard that would be to make but it IS the Engineer's (defensive) home.
A rule many of the developers I follow have an solid rule: Smart pathing, inaccurate as f * * k with ranged weapons: And this honestly works a lot better than what valve puts into Mann VS machine. Sniper bots tend to blend into the drab settings way too often and can just pick off the entire team, it's the reason killfeeds were never removed from MVM. You either make them an threat up close, or such a hindrance at a range that players give up. Or you find an sweet in between where they can swap from ranged to melee and still pose some challenge. A lot of devs struggle with this: But I know you'll get there.
"so freaking cool"
-me when I finish watching one of your videos
Haha thank you :]
12:40 actually made me feel so much nostalgia
Part of the problem I'm facing, and I imagine you're facing a bit too, is that it's hard to tell when something is sufficiently capable for your project while also not being too complex.
It's really easy to start looking into different behavior methods and think "oh that does exactly what I want it to do," but then be something that takes months, if not years to properly develop. On the other hand, you find stuff that is the right complexity for how much you want to invest in the project, but then it doesn't deliver the kind of behavior you want.
I also have the problem where I despise the idea of rewriting code later that I spend too long discerning the right route forward that I forget what I was doing to begin with.
Oh my god I LOVE your style!!! It's so pleasing to watch and the art is lovely 💛
Congrats on figuring out the AI system! Looks very promising for future enemies :3
And also nice bingo lol! Hope you get a bingo soon! (Either a diagonal or the UT/DR + Sonic OC row looks with the best odds)
Also Rain World mentioned!!! 0:45 peak
(ok genuinely the cheaper plane tickets is something i actually something i'm interested on, very much thanks for letting us know!)
I love seeing these videos pop into my feed. Always a highlight of my day ^^
You really need more attention on your channel, your videos are absolutely amazing and i wish more people knew about this channel, i am also curious how the Tf2 Engineer Singleplayer game is gonna be like. Keep it up man.
I know that in single-player combat games with levels, varied objectives can be good to have, some more defensive, some more offensive. This also ties into team fortress two with there varied objectives.
I feel like mutable sentrys is a good idea
I think you can add a kind of speedy enemy that focuses purely on plugging themselves and maybe a kamikaze that tries destroying turrets
0:45 RAIN WORLD MENTION RAHH
i knew that was coming when he mention advaced enemy ai
That sponsorship segment was hilarious, I actually watched it
Btw, I love that you read all the comments, I like seeing creators that actively interact with their community
Do u read ever edit tho?
My suggestion is to have a WHOLE RANGE OF SENTRY GUNS (basic offensive, defensive that protect the player or the other buildings, supportive that heal other buildings, etc)
But have the VERY first sentry be the tower you’d have to defend
Personally I think for the should the sentry be the base point you made my take is have a sentry that can be placed/replaced and destroyed like engie’s but have a base be equipped with a “heavy” sentry equipped with like a mortar or something for some fun extra firepower. Good luck on the bingo!
it would be cool if you added a feature that diverted some of the power from your sentry gun into a shield that gives your tower more health, but lowers the damage dealt by your sentry for more hands-on horde control
Loved the video and learned a lot! I have some ideas for you (since you asked for it).
If the player's goal is to survive waves, one approach I thought of is to make the turret offer additional benefits besides just shooting enemies. For example, it could provide a small damage resistance or heal the player when they are in close range (or something similar). However, when the turret gets destroyed, all these benefits disappear. Maybe the enemy can even build a small turret of their own if they stand where your sentry was for a certain amount of time.
I want the player to have an incentive to keep the sentry alive. Perhaps moving away from the turret could draw enemy attention, but then the player would lose the healing benefit, so they would need to make strategic choices depending on the situation.
Dang, you already have a sponsor. And it is entirely deserved, you put so much effort in these videos for so little views and subs.
You’re CRIMINALLY underrated!! Such amazing content!
Thanks :]
Suggestion: You have mentioned that you might have a tower to defend as an objective.
So what if that tower was a giant dispenser, which will heal you and will be the only way to heal (that would solve a problem of making an engineer nest), as well as gives you lots of ammo and metal, and (If they get added) recharge any gadgets or speed up its recharge.
To balance it and so that it wont become just more powerful version of dispenser, it will have some sort of aura that prevents you from building near it. (This will force engineers to leave their gun or leave with it, giving an opportunity for enemies to advance)
But to maintain self sustain of a player, you will still have a mini dispenser, that could be used as a wall (with a reasonable amount of hp) and gives less metal and ammo, and no healing.
And maybe an ability to make teleport network.
I hope that this might inspire you, in which way you want to take your game and over all make the game more fun. Wishing you the best and waiting paitiently for this game to realease.
🤔👀 That sounds cool, thanks for commenting and being nice :]
Aww, baby has himself a patreon and career goals🥺 Want to be a big professional internet guy, dontcha? So ambitious! Go get em, guy!!! ❤
My thought is to do something MvM-like for the types of enemies.
You get one type that doesn’t have much health, but moves incredibly fast and blindly rushes the objective for an instantly game-ending attack
You can get one that has the singular goal of rushing down the player to swarm and kill them
You can get one that can place its own turrets to defend the enemy spawn point
Finally, I get to catch a JayTheDevGuy video almost as soon as it comes out.
Also, your videos are super helpful to me, someone who's working on a shooter as well. I especially like the one on crosshairs.
Thank you! Good luck!
@@JayTheDevGuy Thanks! Good luck to you too!
I think having the AI check for other entities EVERY frame would significantly effect performance when trying to spawn a large amount of enemies in one level. lowering it down to, like, 20 would help with optomization
YES!!! LETS GO!!! HES BACK!!!
(Edit) An idea can be that the engineer is defending something like a small building with the word “Texas” on a big sign, or something like a bacon factory or just the red/blu intel.
exciting stuff jay. ur vids always take me out of the youtube hole and makes me work on my own game so thanks :)
It's honestly flattering my TH-cam videos make you stop watching TH-cam videos
I think making multiple maps with different objectives would be a cool idea. Kinda like TF2. One map could have you defend your turret, but you can't move it. Another being you have to defend a tower, or multiple towers. Basically if you can't decide on one thing do them all!
A sponsor already? Your growing fast af and you deserve it great videos man
I wonder if the game will have the same elements of engineer that give me satisfaction like stretching your presence with buildings or the sense of progression that comes with leveling your buildings, with the sentry as an example you can see it gain another barrel and rockets with 3 instead of the normal +1=increased stats with no change the gun itself, and while it gets stronger you as an engineer still need to work around its core limitation of being an immobile gun with limitation to its range, ammo and turn speed. Ultimately you can still walk around the map without reducing the effectiveness of you or your buildings kinda like giving boring tasks like holding an angle or supplying nearby teammates to robots you constructed. With all that said I wonder if this game will encourage play styles like turtleing were your dispenser is best placed at your back at all times and your sentry’s so good at killing all the enemies that maintaining becomes the most effective strategy, of course you could force the engineer to grab pickups around the map or adding an artillery enemy that punishes you for bunkering down, but how would you do it in a way that isn’t tedious. Or maybe add conveyer belts and moving platforms to build on maybe give the engineer map specific buildings he can invest time and resources into like elevators and security doors all of which have there costs and rewards that a player needs to assess to plan out where their time and resources should be allocated. Rant over, good luck on that bingo card.
Commenting for the algorithm, I really like this channel the vibe is so fun
Thank you for your service 🫡
Careful lad. Finding out what financial stability you can get talking about your game's development rather than actually making the game has devoured one too many developers.
Still beats the day job
If you made the sentry gun the main defense target, you could add lots of interesting upgrade paths where you spec more into the base than your own turrets / gear. I think it's definitely something to consider
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Honestly one of the few TH-cam channels that makes me light up when I see them in my notifications. Every video has such an interesting topic at hand, and actually teaches me something! I’d definitely share my social security number with you
Aw man that's so nice haha thank you :] I can't wait to sign up for some credit cards
Since this game is orientated around the Sentry, I'd say having the Sentry be the thing you have to defend works great, but you could also spice it up by having other "objectives" that can be defended optionally, but if managed can help you defend your sentry. Maybe a building that acts as a Dispenser, or a fortification that gives an attack boost to the Sentry when its near it. If the Sentry is destroyed, its game over, but the other things getting destroyed slowly makes things harder.
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Dang it bro my ocs fill out like 4 spaces already lol
Congrats on a year of TH-cam! Your style for art and videos is so inspiring. 😃
I love the implication in the ad that Jay is calling us NPCs if we use the sponsor
The tower sould be a tf2 control point
What wtf he has 40k subscribers I didn't realise congratulations! literally subscribed on your second video, you have made good content, you definitely deserve 40k (I would argue more but oh well)