DDA shooter
Static difficulty systems in action games can fail to accommodate against a wide range of players skill levels. Leading to either experiences too easy, or experiences too hard. For example, in the standard difficulty selection, easy could be too easy, but normal could be too hard.
This project aimed to explore dynamic difficulty systems could create a more balanced and engaging experience when compared to static.
This game is an action game prototype made in unity, developed with both a static difficulty game(Type 1) and a DDA game(Type 2). Both systems have 3 phases, indicating easy, normal and hard, or in DDA systems case, relaxed, tense and stressful. Testers played both versions and provided feedback.
Worked on:
- Director system
- Reactive Behaviour Tree System
- AI
Assets:
- City fire creative commons music
- Unity asset particle materials from JMO
Code
Death chance with director and player monitor
One part of the director system, I use a death chance heuristic. What it does is takes in the damages the player takes in total per a defined tick, creating a list of damages. Based on that list, using the current player's health, considering the time, deviations and mean. This will return a chance of death based on those values, which is one way the director calculates the struggle level of the player. Which can be what determines a how the director may decide to act, by making it easier, harder or keeping it the same.
Reactive Behavior tree
The enemy AI uses a reactive behavior tree to handle it's decisions. What that means,is a combination of stacks with behavior trees. The AI has 2 stacks, and within each stack are sub-behavior trees, handling smaller but still in depth decisions. Allowing the AI to have not just memory and two different decision stacks, but enables developing complex decisions still easier with the use of behavior trees.
