2016

Tactical Squad is prototype where you setup battles against smart AI soldiers with various weapons that can take cover, fire from cover, become overwhelmed and decide to retreat, become aggressive and charge forward, and more. Watch the battle unfold and hope your team wins.

This project started out as a brief cover-system demonstration, but over a single week I expanded it to be a bit more fun to watch, while also implementing an editor, audio, victory conditions, several squads and weapons, grenades, a playable free-cam, and several different levels to choose from.

Notable Features:

  • Intelligent combat AI that allows soldiers to hide behind cover when under threat
  • Last Known Position memory and threat vectors have enemies peeking from cover and firing back
  • Extensible AI logic that allows designers to make different types of AI easily
  • Tactical battle simulation

Initially inspired by this GDC talk on goal-orientated AI, I’d instead opted for implementing a simple behavior tree to kick things off. When spotting enemies or taking damage, a Pressure variable is increased, dictating whether the squad member takes cover or flees to local team-mates.

Enemies can also throw grenades at enemies in cover, and the four weapons (blaster, shotgun, sniper, blade) all change how members react and move. Enemies can peak and fire from cover, and the cover they take is determined by line of sight, and last known positions.

I’ve also used this project as an excuse to learn some rough Blender skills, and made all of the models / effects / animations myself, only spending around 5-10 minutes on each mesh, so be gentle!