correct behaviour. One thing was to make sure the limb received punishment when moving too fast or oscillation was detected. In the end, we also built a muscle structure stabiliser to make it even more stable and predictable.
generation in an offline mode to create our art assets, that the procedural generation compiles into a monster or level. Another procedural part not mentioned are our procedural animations. We built an AI that can get any limb and body combinations and use the muscles to defy gravity and move, that is what creates the eerie look of the movement of our monsters, which are physics- based. This was really tricky because the AI constantly tried to outsmart the physics system to reach the required speeds we gave it, resulting in vibrating limbs and exploded bodies!
HOW DID YOU SOLVE THE ISSUE? Well, it wasn’t easy to solve. We had to do a lot of trial and error, constantly tweaking the ruleset to encourage
WHAT ARE THE RISKS OF RELYING ON PROCEDURAL GENERATION? The big risks are: 1.) Ensuring the tech is reliable. 2.) Estimating how long it will take to implement. And, most importantly, 3.) Is it fun? If it all comes together and is engaging, we consider it a success!
WERE THERE ANY UNEXPECTED DIFFICULTIES DURING DEVELOPMENT?
The biggest challenge was getting the AI movement to be reliable and visually interesting.
HOW DIFFERENT DOES THE RELEASED GAME LOOK FROM HOW IT WAS ENVISIONED? I like to view our games as game jam projects. We constantly improve our game as it’s grown very far from its original scope. As I said before, the game was originally conceived with a black and white ink- drawn look.
AS THE ART CAME TOGETHER, DID IT INFLUENCE THE DESIGN OF THE GAME IN ANY WAY? AND IF SO, HOW?
The biggest thing is that we created different types of elemental texture styles and what we call monster materials. This lets us re-use monster parts but using vastly different looks and properties. An example of this would be a limb that could be a gore-looking material or we could have a molten lava version of it that, if touched, engulfs the player in flames.
76 | MCV/DEVELOP June 2022
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