Kerkerkruip

One of the new rogues in Kerkerkruip 10 will be Automatos. He is a giant made of steel by the priests of Nomos, and like that god he is committed to law and order. But Automatos takes his lawfulness a bit too far, into the realm of rigity. Instead of using the normal artificial intelligence routines of Kerkerkruip to decide what action is the best, Automatos follows a short predetermined action sequence. For instance, he might concentrate, dodge, attack, block, concentrate, and attack… and then start again at the beginning. This sequence is adhered to very strictly. Automatos will dodge even if nobody is attacking him, for instance; or will counter your attack with an attack of his own, if this is so scripted.

Without his rigidity, Automatos might be the most fearsome of all level 4 foes. He is tougher and deals more damage than his counterparts. But the rigidity is there, and once the player has found out which script he is following — the exact sequence will vary — she can take advantage of his predictability. Well-used brains will always defeat tons of mindless steel, right? Right?

To make things more interesting, Automatos will lose some of the parts of his cognitive machinery whenever he is struck by a particularly damaging blow. In practice, this means that one ore more actions will fall out of his sequence. So it is possible to have a damaged Automatos who attacks every turn; or, more pathetically, one who never attacks but just dodges and concentrates. Only a hard-hearted fiend like the player character could even contemplate killing such a helpless being.

The reaction and flow system of Kerkerkruip 9, while certainly better than the old one, wasn’t working exactly as we had hopen. Dodging was almost always better than parrying, because defensive flow was generally better than offensive flow; rolling was rarely used; and blocking, while useful, was also somewhat hard to conceptualise.

For Kerkerkruip 10, we have simplified the reaction and flow system, and so far I like what I see. In the new system, rolling is gone. Dodging and parrying both add one flow, but dodging now transforms all your flow into defensive flow, while parrying transforms it all into offensive flow. Furthermore, any attack you make, whether successful or not, removes all your flow. Blocking gives no flow at all, but gives you a better defense than either of the other two reactions.

As a result of these changes, dodging is now generally better than parrying if you will be attacked again before your next attack; and parrying is generally better than dodging if you will attack before being attacked again. This means that choosing the right reaction is a matter of predicting your own strategy and the behaviour of your enemies. And of course, the exact circumstances also play a role, since your weapon, the opponent’s weapon, and features like the bridge of doom can make either of the two options more or less attractive.

Blocking now is the action you should use when you really don’t want to be hit — you sacrifice additional flow for having a better defense right now. That could be worth it if you are concentrated or low on health.

The new system is simpler and more elegant, and it also seems to deliver more satisfying tactical choices. We need to do more testing, but I suspect we’ll be tweaking this version rather than going back to the old one.