In the last couple of days, I wrapped up some last RPG tweaks. Made rogues a little more powerful, adjusted the numbers a little bit; nothing too big.

Next up on my list is to add some AI functionality to the monsters you run into in SENG. Right now they basically just charge at the closest party member and attack. My main goal here is to enable some more interesting tactical combat scenarios for the level designer. (Not totally true; I also want to enable some non-combat scenarios, like having monsters patrol an area, but that is a secondary goal).

However, as I've been thinking about these AI improvements, I got to thinking about the combat scenarios that I wanted to enable. I made a small list of these, and then thought about how I was going test these out, both the AI behavior and also the play balance. Thinking about making little test areas for the scenarios made me think about the next big milestone, where I make a series of prototypes for playtesting. And, "Eureka!", I should just merge these ideas, and make a series of test encounters as part of a prototype. Temporary code name: "Ten Interesting Fights".

Here are the 10 fights:

1. "Warm-up" - The player controls one actor, a basic fighter. He fights a couple of really wimpy monsters, one at a time.


2. "The Classic" - I add a couple of new party members, a rogue and a spellcaster. They fight a classic fantasy battle, against some brutes in the front with archers behind.


3. "Summoners" - Same party as before. Now the enemies are a set of spellcasters that summon minions to fight the party.


4. "Archers" - Same party. The enemies are a set of archers across a chasm, difficult to approach across a narrow, exposed bridge.


5. "The Horde" - Now I introduce a full gamut of potential party members for the player to pick from. The first battle for this party is against a whole bunch of wimpy monsters. This is something of a test for how the engine scales. 20? 50? 100?


6. "Heavy Ordnance" - Something like "The Classic", except now in the back are spellcasters that focus on damaging spells.


7. "Sneaks" - The party faces a bunch of stealthy rogues who try to sneak behind the party and attack the soft spellcasters in the back, or use shoot-and-run tactics.


8. "It's a Trap!" - Spellcasters and archers take cover behind a set of traps, some visible (lava pits), some not.


9. "Helping Hand" - The party faces a set of tough soldiers, with healing/buffing spellcasters in the rear.


10. "The Boss" - One big, mean sumbitch.

I figure I can advance the party 2 levels between each encounter, giving full exploration of levels 1 through 20.

In planning this, though, I've realized I need to make a bunch of content (levels, monsters, etc), before I can really get to work on the AI improvements. So I'm going to postpone the AI work just briefly to wrap up the remaining engine work. Which is:

• A few graphics tweaks - adding "aegis" effects (which previously I had to manually put into the graphics), and a couple of others.


• I never updated all of my icons to the new UI; they are all too dark, and I need some more, for instance for different weapon types.

So, probably about a week to work on those, at which point I'll declare the "Engine Updates" milestone done, and begin work on the "Ten Interesting Fights" Prototype. The goal with "TIF" is to actually produce a prototype that I can have some people test and give feedback.

Oh, and if someone has a thought on a better name than "Ten Interesting Fights", I'm all ears.