The developers from Amplitude Studios have published a new dev diary dedicated to the avatars and avatar AI in the upcoming strategy Humankind.
In Humankind, all civilizations will be represented by an avatar with players getting to customize and share their own. The Avatars will wear the costumes to represent the cultures you choose for authenticity’s sake.
The devs wanted to give players a lot of freedom when it comes to the looks of their avatar, whether the players are trying to represent themselves or a fictional leader they envision for their civilization. The team focused on facial customization with a lot of different features and a variety of options for each feature. On top of this, you will get to pick a Personality for your Avatar, which determines how they respond to diplomatic interactions with dialog and gestures.
Creating an Avatar for yourself is fun for single player, but it really shines with friends. Of course, your friends will see your Avatar when you’re enjoying a multiplayer match, but more than that, you can share your Avatar with your friends through Games2Gether so they can play against “you” even if you’re not around!
You can customize the way your AI will behave! There are three aspects to this AI customization:
- Archetypes are the general tendencies and behavior of your Avatar. Do they try to plan far ahead, or do they fly by the seat of their pants? Are they staunch allies, or will they backstab you at the drop of a hat? Will they bear a grudge if you do the same to them? You can tweak these on several different axes in either direction, but you will only get to tweak so many of them at the same time, so choose carefully.
- Biases are a lot more specific than the archetypes. They represent a kind of quirk or almost an obsession your AI Avatar will have. Do you never surrender until the bitter end, or refuse to give in to any demands? Your Avatar can do the same. Or perhaps you love the idea of picking an Ancient Era culture, and taking it to the Contemporary Era? You could have your Avatar play to that, too.
- Finally, you can give your Avatar certain Strengths, passive bonuses you can use to supplement the play style you would like for your Avatar. If you’re a player who enjoys the warfare and battles in Humankind, perhaps you want our Avatar’s Emblematic Units to be more powerful. Maybe you prefer research and trade, so you’d rather give your Avatar a little boost to Science and Money generation.
