magicmix

This is a small proof-of-concept on a 3D game written in Godot. It is fully written in GDScript.

It contains the skeleton of various RPG elements like

• Inventory system
• Spell system
• Skill trees
• Dialogue system
• Experience system (WIP)
• NPC AI (for more see AI section)
• ...

Usage

Open the project in Godot and press "Play".

The tags should contain a playable version at different key points in development. Use git checkout <tag> to switch to one of the following tags:

• 2d
• 3d-utility-ai
• 3d-behavior-tree-ai
• 3d-goap-ai
• v-0.1
• v-0.2

I recommend to close Godot before switching to a different version. To checkout the most recent version, use git checkout main (stable) or git checkout dev (unstable).

Beware that everything in this repository is unstable. :)

Controls

General

• Pause menu: <Esc>
• Console: < or ° or <Shift>+.

Movement

• Movement: WASD
• Jump: <Space>
• Sprint: <Shift>
• Walk: <Alt>
• Crouch: <Control>
• Switch to spirit mode: <Tab>
• Spirit sprint: <Space>

Interaction/Dialogue

• Interact: F
• Switch answer: <Arrow Up>/<Arrow Down>
• Choose answer: <Enter>

Skills

To use these shortcuts, the currently controlled character has to own these skills. This can be done via the skill tree or with spell crafting.

• Switch element: <1-4>
• Cast spell: Q/E/R/T/Y

Panels

• Open/Close last panel: X
• Open/Close inventory panel: I
• Open/Close spell crafting panel: C
• Open/Close spells panel: K
• Open/Close skill tree panel: Z
• Open/Close character panel: P

Console

• help: List all commands
• load <level>: Load level
• exit: Close console
• reload: Reload current level
• save: Save game
• quit [force]: Quit game; pass force to quit without saving
• inspect <character>: Show debug information about character
• control <character>: Make character the current player character
• spawn <character>: Spawn character in current level
• respawn: Reset player to spawn point
• kill <character>: Kill character
• give_all: Give player all available (except mutually exclusive) skills
• heal: Heal player character

Typing a command without its argument will list all possible arguments.

AI

I tried different approaches for the AI.

• Behavior Trees
• Goal Oriented Action Planner (GOAP)
• First Utility AI
• Final Utility AI

Behavior Trees might be a pretty good way to implement a solid AI, but this requires manual work for different behaviors.

Next, I tried a Utility AI. However, the results were not as good as expected.

A Goal Oriented Action Planner looked like the solution. However, defining the exact outcome of especially combat actions was impossible due to player interaction. I tried to fix this by switching to a behavior tree in combat, but I was not able to design a good enough behavior tree for this. Additionally, because of the wide range of actions, the planning process caused performance issues.

Finally, after rejecting the GOAP approach, I decided to revisit the idea of a Utility AI. This second Utility AI offered good enough results at a neglectable performance impact.