Comments on: Evolution SHMUP

By: nano

nano — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:49:56 +0000

The game DOES also work in netscape for me at least.

By: SteveCentra

SteveCentra — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:04:49 +0000

To be blunt, this game is a piece of shit compared to your other games (which rock). Why are there green cross circles floating to the left as a trail from the enemies? It makes it hard to see where the enemies are and it creates a laggy cloud of shapes. (Also, if it worked correctly in all browsers the game, that would be nice. Does Firefox work correctly?)

By: Greg

Greg — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:13:01 +0000

Yes, it stands for shoot-’em-up.

By: Swoo

Swoo — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:30:22 +0000

Erm, can I ask a silly question? “SHMUP”, does it stand for “SHot ‘eM UP”?

Sorry for this question the answer of which perhaps may seem obvious but, English is not my first language so that may explains it

Thanks for the answer! (if anyone answers)

By: Spunkycomics

Spunkycomics — Tue, 27 May 2008 06:06:57 +0000

Lol, finally got to play it. Someone mentioned Opera works well, so i went downstairs and flipped on my Wii.
It was slow and laggy at times, but otherwise, normal.

The game is ok….cool concept, but i didnt care much for the style of game.

Love your work though Petri!!!

By: Awnown Eh? Moose

Awnown Eh? Moose — Sun, 25 May 2008 18:47:26 +0000

Oh, and this isn’t procedural generation.
This is randomness that starts to take bias after a bit.

By: Awnown Eh? Moose

Awnown Eh? Moose — Sun, 25 May 2008 18:46:14 +0000

Just in case anyone’s curious, it works properly in Opera (y’know, the GOOD browser).

Also, if anyones getting games where the enemy move too fast to be hit, or are invisible, or YOU are invisible, don’t panic, it’s supposed to do that.

By: logr

logr — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:22:43 +0000

I’ve been away for a week and it seems the background have evolved a little, but I’m still annoyed with the no enemy generation bug.
It occured to me after a few enemies (score=3000) or right at the beginning => NEW GAME, NEW GAME until it works. I think this is the biggest bug so far.
I’ve also noted that some enemies just come for one second, but maybe they were designed this way.

By: Vish

Vish — Sun, 18 May 2008 10:49:56 +0000

Well Petri ..

I think the game is quite good and it is kinda addictive.

Would you mind elaborating on how the game evolves ? How does the system decide (as Greg pointed out) what is good and what is bad ? What kind of Process did you use ?

I’m presuming there is some kind of Genetic Algorithm used for this. As far as what I know about Genetic Algorithms is that the program randomly generates loads of data from which, based on player input, it would categorize which of the data are favorable and unfavorable. Then it should mutate the data with the most favorable outcome so as to yield a better performance. And then the loop continues…

But this is all for one simple trial.
For multiple trials I have no Idea …

Anyway I quite love the game concept. And best of luck for the TIGSource’s Procedural Generation Competition !!

By: Greg

Greg — Sun, 18 May 2008 01:33:23 +0000

I think the problem with this implementation of the idea is that you’re changing so many things that it becomes hard to tell which the user approved or disapproved of. When you get a game with a horrible background but good enemies, you’re likely to stick with it even though you hate the way it looks. Similarly, if the background is nice but the enemies are impossibly hard, you won’t last long enough for it to count as a positive vote.

In theory, the evolution might still work despite the huge number of variables, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find it takes more samples than you end up getting before it reliably comes up with a fun game.