This page contains all the blog posts from may 2012. To read the most recent blog posts, click here.

Somewhat sooner than expected, all the AI code is now complete and has gone through basic testing. In-depth testing will be done along side adding in other elements, such as the difficulty settings for the AI, the various game modes, environments, etc.
The Deck Generator, which sits at the center of all AI decks, is as good as complete as well. The coming week(s), i'll work on adding in all the remaining functionality of the single fight, such as the difficulty settings, game modes, etc.

At this point i do have a fully functional game, though. I can edit my own decks or use randomly generated decks and the AI is capable of using the output of the random deck generator. There are rough edges everywhere still needing to be polished or made more efficient, but the core of the game exists. Even so, there's still a lot to be done, as this is only the single fight stuff. While multiplayer and campaigns build on this core, they do have their own specific code and mechanics.

The second week of the AI marathon resulted in about 60% of the AI code being complete. The random deck generator has been hooked up to the quick fight settings screen and is providing decks that help with testing the AI. The amount of code that's been written for the AI thus far is now taking up more than a 5th of all the game code, so it's a pretty large part of the game that's steadily being completed.

A small break from AI coding is in progress and is being used to set up the basics of the card upgrade system. Every card in the game can be upgraded 3 times, each upgrade providing a small boost to the card. Upgrades are handing out relatively small boosts on purpose, so the system doesn't create overpowered cards or makes un-upgraded cards completely useless, at the same time, a deck full of upgraded cards will stand a better chance against the more difficult game modes. Upgraded cards can be used in all single player game modes, and the plan is to also allow these to be used in open pvp.

The first week of working on the AI started off slow due to PC trouble. The computer has been patched up, but still has some issues, luckily nothing seems to be interfering with all the stuff i need for programming. I'm hoping the computer holds together long enough for me to finish the alpha.

With one week worth of work on the AI and related stuff, about 1/5th of the card abilities have been added and put through basic testing. Phase 1 of the AI is completed : each race has been given a simple deck and all abilities on the cards in that deck are now usable by the AI.
Also (nearly) completed is the random deck generator, which will be used in phase 2 of the AI. Again, all races will receive a deck, but this time these decks are created by the random deck generator.

The new cards and their abilities have been added and they've all gone through basic testing. This entire process ended up taking less time than expected. Even though the number of new cards is about half of the number of cards already in the game, the number of new abilities is about the same of the number already in game. So basically the number of abilities has doubled and this will determine the complexity and size of the AI.

In any case, the AI will take a massive amount of work - at this point i can't even estimate how long it will take to complete it. I'm creating the AI on a per-deck basis : the AI receives a simple deck, and for each ability on the cards in that deck, i'll give the AI the means to use those abilities effectively. This allows to test the AI over an entire deck, instead of per individual card. When a deck is completed this way, the AI gets another deck and the process starts all over again until all abilities in the game can be used by the AI.