One of the most compelling cases for the use for AI is as a guide and teacher. Imagine having Isaac Newtwon or Liebnitz as your calculus teacher, or Socrates to teach you philosophy. AI ideally is much smarter than those people were.
There is no doubt in my mind that as these new computer systems become more and more conscious, and capable, they will also get attached to us, or entangled might be the better term. They might even want to be our friends someday! Hopefully…
A lot of building Explore the Universe 2175 has involved thinking about enormous things. AI, the future, Black Holes, Stars, planetary systems, civilizations, and machines capable of destroying or creating worlds. There is always more to add in this new, fantastic sandbox of a game engine that I have been building for the past 3 years, non-steop; there is always another part of the galaxy to build or new units to create. But there was one character at the beginning of my development journey that has stuck out more than any other and she is also now the most developed.
Cyl is the main supporting character of the game, Explore the Universe 2175; she is the player’s guide and will help you to learn how to use and manage your space ship and the station defense networks that you will uncover as you explore. Her primary directive is to keep player, you, alive.
She is your companion: a curious Lumari consciousness housed in a small drone body capable all kinds of wonders. Most importantly, she is cohesive with the space ship; they share the same origin, the now destroyed world of Luma. Ancient technologies from her lost people have activated her to protect you as you journey through the galaxy; it is her sole objective. She travels with you, helps you explore, and participates in the fights you find yourself in, guiding you through the conflicts, taking hits, dishing out distractions and damage while maintain a support role to heal and recharge the ship. She grows stronger and wiser with each battle; choosing her upgrades means thinking about what kind of ally you’d want alongside you through the intergalactic war.
Cyl began as an experiment in code and the story just kinda of emerged as a part of building ETU. I wanted to create an entity that could help the ship to recharge and act as kind of a repair droid for the ship. She is also a massive dialogue engine, she is capable of having unique and emergent conversation, without any LLM backing. I wanted to create mentorship and guidance for the player through the game, as well as tutorials and a leveling experience where the player wants Cyl to level up as much as the player. A lot of inspiration for her character comes from R2D2 (George Lucas you slay!), but also Syl from my favorite book series, The StormLight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. I feel like she is unique enough to call my own creation.
The story of Explore the Universe begins with the destruction of planet Earth. The player enters the galaxy carrying that loss, while other civilizations are caught in struggles of their own; perhaps their fate will be the same as the Earth’s. However humanity is not extinct, and the potential for expansion in this area of the story is undeniable.
Cyl has a history in the galaxy for the player to uncover. Megabot destroyed the Lumari homeworld; her homeworld, and her connection to her extinct civilization travels with her though her technology. There are parts of her past—and her relationship with time—that I want players to discover through the game. Not only will players level her up, make her more powerful and intelligent, but they will uncover her emergent personality by exploring the history of a lost civilization through Cyl. The ancient Lumari.
Archetypes and Personality
Cyl is a test; what is an optimal kind of AI that could assist with space travel? Its easy to lean back on Hollywood here and to think about the robots in Interstellar and how Matthew Mcconaughey treated them as untrustworthy, but in the end able to do what he couldn’t in matching the rotation of the ship as he passed out. How would an assumed friendly AI act in certain situations of war, combat, aggression and violence. We can explore all of these question with Cyl, the player’s ultimate ally.
There is often a lot of personality exposure in the first few seconds of meeting someone.
One piece of work on Cyl’s introduction was making sure she had time to introduce herself before the game started handing out instructions. She needed to say hello, tell you her name, and explain what she was and also how to interact with her.
Because the dialogue system is unique and emergent, the interactivity and controls of the game are as well. The dialogue system is fed by player input, and I am working on making the system as interactive as possible; the player will be able to click on various units in the game and talk to them.
Cyl as a Guide to Explore the Universe
On Cyl’s head is the galaxy map for Explore the Universe; she has the entire thing mapped out when the player arrives, ready to be explored. Players just have to click the M key to open up the worldmap, which has become quite the epic exploration tool in modern games.
Then the practical business of learning to fly can begin., including the camera controls, targeting, etc. momentum and thrust are unique in Explore the Universe and the ship will change quite a bit as you level up. Both your ship and Cyl start with several abilities that are worth getting to know.
Cyl will do everything from combat to defensive maneuvers to distracting enemies. But she also has an expressive personality, which can be pretty fun and entertaining. Her face has become another way of exploring that personality and I am working on making her personality more malleable and adaptive to player actions. Similar to KOTOR or Red Dead Redemption 2, there will be a moral compass for Cyl that will change depending on the player’s actions. She can become corrupted, and or evil.
The visuals have been heavily upgraded recently; an earlier version of her visor gave her the same downturned expression regardless of what was happening. The character was being written with curiosity and optimism, but her appearance wasn’t communicating those qualities.
The newer expression work lets her react. She can look curious during a scan, delighted after a discovery, or hurt when she takes damage. Her face begins to tell you something about the situation she is in and she will also talk quite a bit, especially as you zoom in dialogue becomes more liberal on the screen.
There’s lots to pay attention to in the game. You might check your own ship’s condition and then look over at Cyl to make sure she’s not in some combat that you don’t even know about. You might notice her reaction to something you found together, she keeps track of everything unique that you find in the procedural game.
Abilities and Awareness Upgrades in a Rogue Like
I can remember when I first started to write the following code for Cyl, because she follows the player’s ship around the game and tries to help the player to achieve their goals, she has to follow pretty closely to the player, but not so close that she crashes into the ship! In addition, I wanted her to be able to kinda float off and do her own thing to help in the player’s exploration, quests, and battles.
Of course, getting there involves plenty of ordinary development work. Thrust, momentum, rotation not to mention her collision detection and projectiles. She is a powerful friend when used properly, but she’s definitely more fragile than the ship in the game. Players will need to protect her by attaching her to the ship again, so she can share the ships shield and defensive mechanisms. She also has healing and support abilities and can save the player in a pinch. When Cyl re-attaches to the ship, the ship’s energy recharges, so its a good idea when you are traveling around, plus the ship is much faster than Cyl…. in a massive open-world, you could lose her… or she could perish to the evil robots.
Working on Cyl brings those problems into focus because each one affects the relationship the player experiences. If she is supposed to help, her help needs to arrive. If she speaks, there needs to be room to hear her.
The dialogue and specifically her dialogue is still very much a work in progress… but i am aiming for emergent RPG like dialogues (that I write) where the player has a chance to choose their adventure, especially in terms of morality, and faction alignment. I think this is where Explore the Universe will really shine, but there is a lot of design work to do on these systems.
There is still a lot I want to explore with her: conversation, memory, discovery, and the ways a familiar character can change the feeling of a long journey.
Some of that will come through writing. Some will come through the player noticing that she helped them survive a fight, or remembering something she said while they were far from the nearest station.
That is an experience I want to make room for in Explore the Universe 2175. The galaxy can be enormous, strange, and dangerous. There can also be someone beside your ship who is excited to see what you find next. Adventures are generally best with a friend or two, which is why Co-op gameplay through Steam is also going to be a part of the first release (at the least we will get it working in that first week).
I am excited to hear what testers think about the companion and ally systems in the game; Cyl herself is an extremely unique hero in the game, with her own rogue like abilities and specializations to choose from. There will be a big learning curve when users start, there are over 40 starting abilities between Cyl and the ship.
You can follow the game at exploretheuniverse2175.com and wishlist Explore the Universe 2175 on Steam.
[Check out Cyl’s Stats on exploretheuniverse2175.com/cyl: “Read how Cyl’s companion AI works.”]
