By the way: as this demo is a submission to the coding contest
(open to read sourcecode)
I hope on your vodes

(in the Acknex User Magazine Part of this Forum)

I downloaded it, it was really good! That demo gets me very addict

And the level was nice

The demo is impressive, somewhat entertaining and perhaps it demonstrates that something of value can still be produced even without the immediate availability of an abundance of top-notch visual and audio production resources or assets (textures, models, music, sound effects, expensive software + skilled artists to produce such, etc.) when a developer/programmer is resourceful, obviously skilled, well organized, clever, knowledgable, etc.
Although there probably isn't much emphasis on deriving value directly from the demo itself, as it is probably intended primarily as a aid for promotional purposes in order to better sell products at a later date, it is of personal interest to me that so much value was accidently derived from the demo. Despite the impressiveness and moderate enterainment value of the demo, normally I would have likely only played it through a few times each on, at the most, two or three separate occasions.

First I will state that my son differs some what from other children of the same age, but, no doubt, many parents will make or have made similar statements.
I have a tendency to casually introduce certain games to my son, which he might find entertaining, while exercising a degree of caution when doing so.
I ran the XSpire demo while my son was in the room, and after playing it once, he was thoroughly addicted.
(This post shouldn't necessarily be an open invitation to those that might lecture about violence, video games and children. I am well aware that an act which introduces a younger child to violence in gaming may represent a critical lapse in responsibility and better judgement.)
He is able to move the player about himself, but prefers that I move the player while he turns, aims and shoots.
Although with my assistance he seems to do quite well on the easiest setting, he still has the patience to tolerate being killed over and over by the blue enemy AI players without being frustrated.
Rarely does he fire on the red allied AI players except when making some sort of point.
His favorite weapon is the rocket launcher and his favorite level is probably "Jostie's level" (I may be mistaken) which seems to have the easiest access to rocket launchers and rocket launcher ammo.
Quite a bit of enjoyment and excitement has been derived from the demo on numerous occasions, by myself and my son, partly due to the teamwork involved. (Neither of us would have thoroughly enjoyed the demo to such an extent without each other.) So for that, although such was probably not intended, Damocles, I thank you. If I vote, I will likely vote for XSpire.

I don't expect you to cater to my wishes or the wishes of a 4 year old boy.
Still, despite the fact that such will probably be ignored, I might like to see the following in future demos:
*a slightly easier difficulty setting or configurations for specifics of the AI like turning, aiming, intentions, aggressivity towards player, etc.
*additional levels with a pluggable interface which allows encapsulated downloads of just levels and accompanying information
*breakable level components (glass windows, exploding barrels, damagable structures (bases? + maybe base protection tactics) etc.)
*doors, elevators, rotating, spinning platforms ("lets get dizzy") which might fling actors
*danger zones with (possibly team unaffiliated) flying drones
*bigger explosions + greater area of effect for rocket launcher (no point hull), grenades, mines, + maybe trip-wire, traps, drop-a-dummy-auto fire, etc.
*a "help I'm stuck in the corner in Backyard Level" self-destruct + area of effect option
*keep the floating players, it's amusing
*while I'm making a list of everything + the impossible, mounted turrets, vehicles and drones
*model choices from the menu including Dubya (you can have mine with marine animations)

Hi,

good to hear, that you and your son enjoy the gamplay.
(you can turn off the gore/blood, if it seems not appropriate for him)

I can shurely make the bot even easyer on the lowest mode,
there is really a wide range of skill. The shooter cracks find it still easy in
the hardest mode, and as you sayd, it is still very challanging for others in the
easyest mode.

The Artwork and effects are still more of a Template, and not totally disigned though,
but that is actually not the most important point. Gameplay is.
Whenever I have more characters, I can include a variety to choose from, by the player.
Old Quake Characters are very easy to implement, thanks to 3dGS beeing a Quake-like engine.

I wanted to implement elevators, but they are actually quite hard to make for
the AI to use it correctly.

The weapons are not balanced yet, if you want to give it a try yourself, you can
change the damage rates in the definitions_2 script. They will be more balanced
in the next demo. (if you change the script, you cant run the game normally, you have to run it with SED !)
The plugin/download of external levels is a good idea,
whenever the AI itself has all features, I can do that.


I can even implement a splitscreen mode, for 2 players. Others also enjoy to play
it with their son. And seeing that people enjoy the gameplay is the point that gives me the most satisfaction.

The floating bots is more of a bug, is fun though

Turrets are a fun thing to implement too, so that a base is protected by
the teams turrets.
I have to see, how to implement destructable things, like windows and stuff,
or some bottles on a shelf, to get extra frag-points

In the Antaris Demo (Showcase 1) you can see how it plays in a Singleplayer Missions,
dont scare your son though..

Greets,

Damocles

Hi Damocles,

I downloaded the demo, but when I booted the file it looked like starting but
just ended and vanished ?

Never mind, any idea when a simple version of your AI will be available to purchase ?.

Please when you Password the programme dont use the method of the software
producing a different number each time it is installed and then we have to send you the number, and you then send us the registration key.

Mythic AI did this and now they don't answer their e-mails and that means that the programme cannot be installed without the registration key supplied by them.

What I am getting at is the software produces a different code number each time it is installed so the key you used last time is no good for this Re-install.

This is the third time I have been saddled with this problem. Sometimes the software developer looses interest in the project and does a bunk.

Did it install?

whenever you start the programm manually, start the .bat file,
else you will have a too small nexus for 2 of the maps included.

Normally thare should be a desktop icon to start it after installing it.

There is a non-installer version here:

http://coniroot.de/~pirvu/au/demo/zips/xspire.zip

About the registration:
I have not yet worked on that issue. But the person who purchase it, should
be able to install it of course.

Some minutes ago I played a demo of your AI. It's very very impressive. You can have a lot of fun with these bots. They "seems" to be not stupid, and they fight fair. Good work at all.