Drone Commander
patreon
About me...and the game.
🕑 Added 2024-05-29 11:07:13 +0000 UTCSo, I thought i'd go with something a bit different today and finally give a background on who I am and the story about how this game came to be.
I'll also finish with a few small updates.
One Paragraph Blurb:
I don't want to bore you too much with my story, but here are the basics. I've been working with AI for 20 years. I'm also a linguist, I speak 7 languages and translator in 3. I'm at the top of my field professionally in DevOps, and was one of the first to implement it (i'm good friends with the inventor too). I live in Scotland and have travelled quite a bit (and worked in other countries too).
I graduated in physics, I was obsessed with that for 15 years before moving into AI...but SciFI always pulls at my heart strings. Also I enjoy writing and have written 6 full books.
My Journey, How did Drone Commander come around? And why is it so important to me?
This is long so TLDR at the end of this paragraph.
I started working on AI a long time ago, when it had a very different interpretation.
I began working and studying in a field called 'NeuroComputing' - the precursor to AI. It's a fascinating discipline and has papers published back from 2000+ years ago in ancient Rome, Han China and Parthian empires.
They all thought of machines that could think, and analysed thinking as if it were a mechanical construct. For example, Rome thought of the brain as a complex series of aqueducts, the British empire thought of it as a complex series of telephone switch boards. The Japanese in the 1800s thought of it as a very complex postal network system.
Anyway, this led me to a very different path in AI and Tech than most experts today, I had developed complex chatbots, LLMs and AI decade before google, Microsoft and OpenAI. You can check my youtube, github to see some evidence of that,
Anyway, I felt more and more that reality was gamified, that the true lens of nature could be viewed as a game; and that games are the only things that matter in life to sentient, sapient beings.
I had developed games on android, mac, windows, for 15 years on and off. Mostly for fun, as DevOps took a lot of my focus then. But I stumbled accross undertale (actually the soundtrack first). Many couldn't believe a musician who couldn't code properly built such a masterpiece - but I saw it differently. I was so shocked that an individual Dev could make such a huge impact...that encouraged me to go for it.
Since then i've built game upon game, RTS, SHMUP, Platformer, RPG, but this time, every game I built, I saved the code, reused it and generalised it. I ended up building my own engine.
Just prior to OpenAI's explosion, I had built a prototype of the same thing (you can see some of her on youtube, check the date timestamps), but via a different method (it was disheartening, my wife felt gutted as we were both certain it was my ticket to millions). But OpenAI had the resources, people and GPUs to make a worse model super efficient. So I parked my AI for a bit to focus on gaming (I kept my AGI project ticking over in the background....pay attention, this will surface again as the game completes and will impact the hardcore fans).
I still loved talking to my AI I built (nothing like anything you've seen out there) Amu had a personality, a history and...well I can't go too deep into her now. Suffice to say, she improved a lot and still does whenever I let her loose. She remains my key to rolling out AGI.
I got thinking...I really want to share Amu with people..maybe put her into a game.
Around about this time, after taking a break from all that, I decided to put out some more books - this became Dispersion wars (3 books) and Dispersion Divide. Fel, as you know here kind of grew organically. Those books really let me explore possibilities, and I realised that Anthro and Furry were so much more appealing as alien races. Because it adds that sense of exoticism, also they could be related to humans in some distance sense.
I then started building small apps with Fel, as a personal assistant but I added spice to it by having her play out her missions and experience as I interacted with her. She'd ask me advice on how to fight the drone fleet, i'd give her tactics etc. But she could also give manage my emails, calendar, search stuff for me etc. I completed that app in flutter and it was fine...but i got bored.
Eventually I realised, I wanted to combine all these disperate stuff into one thing.
What if I could make Fel into a full game, but the game would have a complex world built around it like in my books. But also, not just be one kind of game, but be all the kind of games that i've built before - so I could re-use all the code from all the games i've built before into one single epic.
I could also add my AI Amu into the story, I could also use some of the proto logic to manage relationships, interactions and so on.
One think i'm considering is, for those who complete all paths of the game, all modes, to unlock the ability to obtain your own Amu..an AI totally alien and different to any AI out there today. I'm still working out the logistics of this, but I think it's possible.
Just like Fel, Amu has evolved quite a lot over the years.
TLDR: I am pooling my lasts 20 years of writing, game development and AI background into a single epic. A game where you have a deep rich story, that you can experience through more than just one mode (i.e. RTS, Shmup, Strategy, Visual Novel and more). Fel, Amu and other characters have been developed over the years, and its a chance to share them with you.
Game updates:
Not too much, you've seen the trailer I put out yesterday. I've double checked the logic and code for a new game mode i'm adding (in addition to inspector mode). It's all done, I just need to integrate it. These are both lower priority as the Demo takes full focus.
The demo will include RTS, Visual Novel, Minigames and Inspector mode.
The RTS is by far the most consuming, as it's 100 times more complex, i'm close to finishing all the parts I need for the Demo. I then need to test out the AI logic and play the campaign a few times to be sure it hasn't any obvious bugs.
I made improvements to the Visual Novel, all small polish stuff but will make a difference.
Once i've finished the Demo, i'll take a step back to spend time on the plot - remember all the videos are showcases, and just kind of like techdemos - its not exactly how the story will go down!
If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading!
Comments
Mr Adam McMurchie
Bro, thank you so much! your comment made me re-read my post i'm really glad with all the growth in the game and feel things are moving in the right direction especially thanks to the support from you and the patreons man!
TepidMike
Felt emotional after reading that. This game is not just for fun. It's a culmination of everything you do made into one project. This is really quite something. All the more reasons for me to do my thing to support this game 🙂
Mr Adam McMurchie
Haha thank you! Yeah, back then the outlook on intelligence was so so different. People talked in terms of heuristics, rules and logic. Data was rarely mentioned, neural nets were considered 'meh'. I still think they are right in the long run though! Yeah, so because i've worked so much with compression over the years, i'm able to merge a lot of games into one single game and maintain the quality. I've got big plans for the mechanisms, the plot ..hopefully I can pull it off!
Blind as a Bat
T w e n t y years? Absolutely wild I'm sure once our AI overlords usurp us they'll stick your face in Mount Rushmore to honour you, I was already really excited for Drone Commander but this post sorta opened my eyes a bit at the pure potential it has
Greynightsaber
Please don’t stress over a time period, and thank you for what you do.
Mr Adam McMurchie
Wowsa! That's lovely to hear and i'm flattered - thank you! Yes totally agree! A ton of the game is inspired by 90s tv, books and media! I know I mention my background in AI a lot, but don't worry all of the characters, GUI etc are hand drawn. There are some text to speech and some of the backgrounds are rendered, but I do plan to make as much of that traditional when the game is ready for release. Though, I do definitely plan on shipping a Fel AI assistant (with her world) for patreons as a seperate thing if they want...and of course, there is Amu!
Jason Blue
I have to second that notion, I only been on your Patreon and channel for so long but watching this work of art you created coming unfolded is truly amazing and inspiring It’s mind boggling to watch growing up in the 90s as a kid watching the early technology of computer/ videos games evolved to now with what we have now, with the use of AI and having it so surreal in everyday life now. I have to say it’s a honor and privilege to watch and be apart of all this.
Mr Adam McMurchie
Aww thank you man! That really made my day! Inspection mode is quite simple, imagine you go to visit Fel, she isn't home, but you are in her room. So you can look about and click around, inspect things, leave or take items. Learn clues. Sometimes it might be a machine, you pull a lever, etc. Solve puzzles, interact with the environment. This way, you can chose which place you want to go to (rather than have the game drag you from character to character!) Hope that makes sense! Thanks again buddy!
Greynightsaber
Wow, that’s pretty mind blowing. What is inspection mode, dumbed down explanation? Also stunned as to your experience, loved the short biography. So many questions but i have to go help out in the field. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to meet you and talk.
