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This week I’ve been working on Artificial Intelligence, more specifically programming an AI agent that chase after the player...

Hello! Welcome back! Mbavhalelo here! Artificial Intelligence is one of those areas of computer programming that’s fun and challenging to work on. Take a look at the following demo...

As you can see the enemy jet just doesn’t chase after the player. Instead, he just shoots while standing and rotating at one location. That’s not really the behavior I’d like the AI to have. I want him to chase after the player and shoot the player when he locks the player.

I then started working on the following demo to make that happen in the near future. The AI agent (the yellow one) in the following demo smoothly follows the player and is controlled by a computer. Although this feels more like a racing game, I’ll work on it some more until it feels more like two jets engaging one another.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been working on this week for later integration into BirdzEyez. 

Hasta la vista!

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“...but Mbavhi, why do you create 2D games instead of 3D games?”--asked some of my friends.

For my friends--or any person for that matter--to fully understand why I made that decision, I should first ask a very fundamental question that every game developer should ask themselves if they’re to create something that has any potential to succeed financially and in terms of popularity.  

What is the essence of video games? Every video game that I create should at its core answer this fundamental question. If the game doesn’t answer the question, then it’s a failure!

The answer to this question has more to do with the state of mind when the player is interacting with the game or prototype. 

I’d argue that the essence of any video game is immersion! But what exactly is immersion in a video game? First of all, immersion has nothing to do with realistic graphics, realistic physics simulated using NVIDIA’s PhysX, or virtual reality for that matter. A game could’ve all these features and still lack soul! On the other hand, there're games like Minecraft that are played by millions even when they've none of those features.

Immersion is when a player care enough about the world that’s inside a video game that it doesn't matter how inaccurate the game world is. They still feel like they're there, they feel like their action matters. If this was a racing game, they'd be leaning at every turn and if it's a fighting game, they'd be standing up and jumping around every time they've delivered a devastating blow to their opponent. A game has soul when you’re there!

So if Immersion has nothing to do with realism, then it really doesn't matter if the game is in 2D or 3D. All that matters is that the player should feel like they're there, they should feel like their action matters.

In light of this, I think I should start every new game in 2D instead of 3D mainly because 3D games have a lot of details that takes a long time to get right and as a solo Game Developer and someone who has to establish a video game franchise, time is limited. I don't want to get caught up in the details and fail to see the bigger picture. The bigger picture in this case being making sure that players are immersed into the experiences that I craft. When that happens, then I'll have successfully established a game that’s worth playing.

When that happens and I’ve raised enough funds through the development release, I’ll be in a position to scale up my team and recreate the game in 3D.   

Hasta la vista!

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My first prototypes and what I’ve learnt from them.

I’ve to say that BirdzEyez is not the first game that I prototyped. I’ve been creating game prototypes since February 2019. The first game that I worked on was a First Person Shooter that looked like it should play on PlayStation 4 or Xbox. That was a big mistake a solo Indie Game Developer could ever make. I spent months making 3D levels, 3D characters, and by the time I started working on Artificial Intelligence realized the project was just too big for one person to work on. I did repeat the same mistake in a lot of prototypes including the following recent prototypes when working on BirdzEyez. 

I’d create a prototype and along the way realize that the prototype wasn’t any fun to play. Even with all it’s cool aesthetics the prototype wasn’t fun to play. It had no spirit to it! This happened every time I created a new prototype! 

Then I began asking myself a lot of questions as to why my games weren’t fun at all. It turns out that I got caught up on things that weren’t important from the beginning and hence got distracted from laying down a good foundation upon which everything would be built.

You see, art, code, music, and story in a video game will not help the game if the foundation is weak.

Therefore, I’ve decided to redesign BirdzEyez focusing more on video game design this time. This time I wanna get it right and I’ll keep you posted about any developments on this blog. 

Hasta la vista!

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Hello

Hello there! Welcome, welcome! What a pleasant surprise--I had no idea you’d be visiting today. I’m sorry if it messy in here, I’ve been really busy. Please--make yourself comfortable. Good, good. Now let’s see... where should we start?

Oh--I should introduce myself!

Well, my name is Mbavhalelo Neron Maano and I’ve always loved creating things. Damn, I recall trying to build a helicopter when I was a kid but it never flew...I guess it had something to do with the fact that I didn’t know anything about aerodynamics at the time. Damn when I reflect back to that moment, I smile. What I love about that moment is that it was authentic! No one influenced my desire to create a helicopter and I wanted to create it anyway. My heart knew what I really wanted to be...long before I knew about art, engineering, science, and technology. I didn't know any of those fields as there was no one in my family who was educated or knew anything about any of those fields.

Since then, I’ve done a lot of things. From 2002 to 2008 I drew a lot of things, mostly Dragon Ball Z characters and I was really good at drawing them. All my friends and family knew about my hobby. Damn, I was obsessed, when teachers were teaching I was busy drawing. That’s probably why I performed poorly academically until grade 11. I drew everyday!

When I graduated from high school, some teachers and some members of my family wanted me to be a Medical Doctor and some wanted me to be a Chartered Accountant. Now, I wouldn’t say that I had no interest in those professions. It’s just that for reasons I never understood at the time I was drawn more to Engineering than Medicine or Accounting. Maybe it had to do with the fact that Engineers create things but Medical Doctors and Chartered Accountants don’t and part of me always knew that I'm a creator although I wasn’t conscious about it at the time .

Although I decided not to work in the Civil Engineering industry, I decided to teach myself the magic of computer programming after I tried to establish a business that was supposed to create smartphones but failed as a smartphone is a hardware and hardware requires money upfront to manufacture and I had no cash. But this failure was very important to me as it taught me that I shouldn't try building any product that a user can touch because that needs money upfront to come to life. That whole process of trying to create a smartphone also introduced me to computer programming that as it turns out helped me figure out what I should do next. What I was supposed to do next was to create computer software…

What all these experiences taught me about myself is that I love creating things and that's probably why I create video games today. Now I wouldn’t say I’m an expert Video Games Developer but the thing is that my desire  to create makes me dig deeper and learn enough to make things happen!

I’m now working on an Android game--although I may end up publishing it on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch instead of Android--and this blog will be sharing the development of this game...! Anyone interested in the development of this game can follow its development here. I will share what's going on with its development, the good and the bad. Yes! I do have bad days sometimes. Although I love creating things it gets frustrating at times and makes me wanna quit…but my problem is that I only quit for few hours, few days, or few months.

Anyone who created or tried to create a video game for that matter doesn't need me telling them that creating video games is hard. It's so hard that any rational person would quit! Unlike traditional apps that only have to be functional, video games also need to be entertaining. It's hard enough to create a functional application but it's even harder to create an app that mesmerize players.

Anyway, when a feature I've been struggling to implement comes to life, I feel like Steve Wozniak. It makes me turn on my music and start dancing as Ariana Grande is singing passionately. That motivates me to take on the next challenge! It suddenly turns from struggle into fun!

Anyway I'll be sharing my adventure here! Hasta la vista!