IAlchimie

A serious game about training an AI to wreak havoc in a village.
(do not try this at home !)

About the game

In IAlchimie, you create a monster by assembling ingredients and a brain. Each of them are modifying the behaviour of the creature you are creating. Your creature needs to fulfill set objectives, forcing you to use trial and error to figure out the right combination of components for your monster.

You can find the game here :  UQAC itch.io page

My Work

Basic monster behaviour

On this project, I was in charge of the monster's behaviour.
First, using Unreal Engine's built in navmesh and behaviour tree systems I created a simple monster that attacked a target with random probability influenced by the chromosomes and the brain used, this allowed to tweak the first parameters of the monster like its size and movement speed as well as allow for fast playtests.

Rework of the monster behaviour

After a few playtests, I realized the probability approach was not feeling responsive, as the monster's behaviour was impossible to understand. Indeed, with probabilities, you couldn't discern if it was sheer luck or your ingredients that lead to the results.

To fix this problem, we, together with the other programmers, created a set of behaviours for the monster. Those behaviours are not managed by probabilities anymore, which makes them understandable and easily readable. Moreover, we spend a lot of time creating minute details to differentiate the behaviours like different animations, sounds and appearances to make them more distinguishable.

Other work

Along with the behaviours, I handled some minor tasks for the project, like the spawner for the monster and the book that allows you to see what combination you already tried.