Polish and preparing for play testing

For this weeks work I looked at polishing some of the AI's mechanics and building a scene so that I can gain feedback on the AI from play testers.

I started by changing how the ragdoll system works when the AI is killed. Previously the AI had all the ragdoll elements on the different body parts while also having all the other AI scripts and animations on the same game objects. This system was causing a few problems where when the AI died he would be thrown backwards and up into the sky. I changed this so that the ragdoll elements were on a different game object and are instantiated when the AI runs out of health. This system looks and works much better than the previous system while not causing any problems performance wise.

Next I added a small health bar to the top of the AIs head so you are able to tell how much health it has. After adding this I noticed that some attacks were unintentionally doing extra damage. After a little bit of bug testing I realised that this was being caused by the different colliders that were on the AI's different game objects that were previously being used by the ragdoll. Removing these fixed this problem.

After this I then added the ability to "back stab" the AI. This means that stabbing the AI in the back will instantly kill them whereas hitting them in the front will only damage them. I also added a very basic death screen to the player. I have done this to help when I give the project out to play testers so they could restart the scene if they die.

Finally I built a scene that I am going to be sending out to play testers next week. I have tried to create a scene that shows off all the different things the AI can do while also giving the player a bit of choice as to how they want to go about killing/moving past the AI characters.

From now on I will no longer be working on my A* algorithm and will just be using Unity's navMesh. This is because my algorithm has a lot less functionality than Unity's and it will take a lot of time for my algorithm to get to the standard of Unity's. I am happy that I have put the time I have into creating the algorithm as I feel that I have learned a lot from it.

Next week I will be collecting all the information from the play testers and seeing what problems and improvements are suggested. As I only have a couple of weeks left on the project I will be looking at what small problems I can fix and improving the AI where I can before handing my project in.