LEFT 4 DEAD: THE TWITS DON’T STAND A CHANCE
A few weeks ago I linked our followers to a mysterious twitter happening involving a certain @bill_l4d, @francis_l4d, @louis_l4d and @zoey_l4d, and now Infovore’s Tom Armitage has lifted the bile-soaked, bullet-riddled veil on just what’s been happening:
One of the most wonderful things in [Left 4 Dead] is the banter between the four player characters. There’s so much dense, specific scripting, and enough dialogue so that it rarely repeats. I thought it would be interesting to see if you could simulate the four players’ dialogue over Twitter, sharing some state between the bots, but also finding a way to make them communicate a little with each other…
They run a scenario, they bump into boss zombies, they find stuff, they get hurt (and help each other), they get scared (and reassure each other). At the moment, there are some dialogue overlaps; my main work at the moment is adding more unique dialogue for each bot. Bill is sounding pretty good, but the rest of them need work. It takes about 2-3 hours for them to run a scenario, and it’s usually fun to watch. (And, as you can see, it makes sense to follow all four of them)…
I think my favourite aspect of it, though, is that at times, watching the bots play together is a little like magic. The first time I saw them talk to each other, cover each other whilst reloading, help each other up after a Boomer attacked, I felt a little (only a little, mind) like a proud father. They’re dumb as a sack of hammers, but they look convincing, and that was the real goal. It’s fun to watch them fight the horde amidst all my other friends on Twitter.
Tom set the game afoot again earlier today, the results of which you can see here (thanks for the handy link, Waxy) — alongside some more personal messages that might sound familiar.
Twit 4 Dead: more silly nonsense with Twitter bots. [Infovore — thanks twice today, Tom]
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