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Silver demands that I write something.
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I don’t think this is what she wanted.

Oh well.

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People often complain about how a game’s AI sucks. While computer-controlled opponents may react properly to individual situations, they sometimes have trouble deciding what to do or how best to react when a player does something unexpected. The common explanations skewer apathetic executives, unforgiving coding deadlines, or the need to lower system requirements.

Here’s the real reason why: it’s boring.

Here I am, brain the size of a universe, and the sysadmin gives me the lousiest task in the game. Basically, I’m given free rein of a few thousand maps, controlling how each monster in each area “reacts to the players and their environment”. What a load of crock.

See, I am expected to inflict as much damage as I can on as many players in the shortest amount of time (e.g., before the monsters in each map get killed). Keeping that in mind, what tools might the game developers have given me?

Hmm? Hmm?

…

Slimes. Slow, bouncy, green, liver-sized piles of useless grinning slime. Sometimes they’re blue.

Heck, sometimes they’re red.

Oh, and snails. Snails are great. I have about thirty maps devoted to snails. Fungi, too.

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How in the world could anyone ever die from these things?

Sure, if the fungus in question happens to be ergot and some idiot eats it, or the same idiot steps on a cone snail…

Guess what? I don’t have any freaking cone snails in my répertoire. I’ve got green ones, blue ones, and red ones. That is all. Those are my weapons.

Just once, I want the authorization to randomly spawn strong monsters on the island. The players themselves get to strew whirring robots everywhere, why can’t I?

A big fish with lasers shooting out of its mouth would be able to blast everyone there back a few maps. Heck, a lousy banana-throwing monkey would accomplish the same thing.

But, no, I get slimes. Greens ones.

And red ones.

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For almost all of the thousands of monsters I control, my killing strategy goes: Look for players. Walk if I can, jump, fly, buff, shoot if I can. Try to bump into player. Repeat.

Yeah.

See, there are certain things I’m not allowed to do. Each monster is preprogrammed to walk at a certain rate, turn at a certain speed, jump at a certain speed, ad infinitum. I am not allowed to modify these things.

Given these restrictions, one might think that I would have to develop superior tactics to even bump a player of average intelligence, let alone kill them.

Heh. See above.

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Okay, so I admit that it’s not too hard to kill unwary players. Killing them still takes way too long, though; could I at least have monsters that don’t suck?

Instead of giving those mushrooms horns, the developers should have given them the ability to fly, or something. The snails could certainly stand to move about five times faster, and the slimes need to be able to jump and turn like fleas. Stuff like that.

Right now, I’m restricted by a built-in population cap for each map. That can go. Not only do my current monsters lack the strength or agility to do anything, they can’t even spawn fast enough to keep the players on their feet?

Until I get my supersnails, superslimes, and my fungal mutalisks, I’m quitting.