Today, we released a new update to our game, Maniac! This update includes many new features to improve the overall gameplay, but the biggest feature was the addition of AI players! You can play the game here: Play Maniac
One issue we had with Maniac is that we had a hard time keeping players around. Since it was necessary to have at least 4 players in a lobby in order to play the game, this meant that individuals couldn’t play unless they had lots of friends available to play with. At first, we added in a survival mode for 1-3 players, but this ended up being boring and unengaging and didn’t give players a good taste of what Maniac is: a 10-player social deduction game with hidden roles. Thus, we’ve been hard at work over the last year making our first version of AI players to fill up the empty servers!
Since this was our first game, and this is our first time working with AI players, we’d love to get some honest feedback!
Some other notable changes we’ve made that would be nice to receive feedback on:
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The innocent team didn’t have much to do besides run around and try to watch for suspicious players. We’ve added in an Evidence gathering system, where players now must gather evidence as a team before Court can be called. Evidence spawns when the Maniac does certain things such as kill players or sabotage lecterns.
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The Maniac can spawn portals around the map to try to summon a monster. Previously, the Maniac had to kind of stumble upon portal-spawning locations, but now the locations are clearly marked.
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The Maniac used to just carry a weapon with which they could kill other players, needing to pull it out and put it away to avoid suspicion. This meant, however, that they could kill freely without any real strategy. We’ve changed it now so the weapons are each single-use, and must be collected as they spawn around the map.
Once again, we appreciate feedback on all these features and on the game overall. Let us know what you think (and please feel free to be completely honest in your feedback, we can take criticism!)
Play Maniac
