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The Veiled Ones is a narrative horror game where you play as Ali, a Muslim exorcist.  Figure out who possessed your son and why they did it with an ancient artifact: the Looking Glass!

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Click here or on the image to go the the Steam page.  We hit over 1K unique players within 2 weeks of launch!

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MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Built and iterated on 3 enemy behavior trees

  • Designed scoring algorithms for patrol and search movement patterns

  • Led the development of AI testing tools

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CONTENTS

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AI Behavior Overview
normal_jinn.png
father_jinn.png

Top: Normal Jinn

Bottom: Father Jinn

DESIGN GOALS FOR AI

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  • Enemies should be invisible because of the narrative

  • Motivate players to engage in stealth gameplay

  • Discourage Looking Glass usage around enemies

  • Emphasize the narrative experience with gameplay

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GENERAL AI BEHAVIOR OVERVIEW

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  • Perception: Sight, Sound, Looking Glass

    • The Looking Glass allows a player to peer into an alternate version of the world they occupy -- enemies react negatively when they are looked at​

  • Patrol: Walk around the house and mourn

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ENEMY TYPE OVERVIEW

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  • Normal Jinn​​

    • Calls the Father Jinn if a player gets too close or makes too much noise

  • Passive Jinn

    • Same as Normal Jinn, but does not patrol​

  • Father Jinn

    • Searches for the player if they get too close or make too much noise​

    • Checks hiding spots for the player

    • Chases after the player if he gets too angry

Design Process Deep Dive
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Top: Invisible Jinn VFX

Bottom: Father Jinn footprint VFX

PROBLEM 1: INVISIBILITY

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CONTEXT

  • Initial Idea: Always invisible enemies to line up with the narrative of the game

  • Situation: Always invisible enemies have no visual information, creating artificial difficulty

  • Task: Give players clarity over enemy behaviors without sacrificing the narrative-focused gameplay

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ACTIONS

  • Made all enemies stay invisible until they pose a threat to the player, clearly communicating danger

  • Prototyped VFX that surround all enemies and footprint VFX for the Father Jinn

  • Designed audio feedback for all enemy behaviors to complement visual feedback

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RESULTS

  • Gameplay Outcome: Players clearly understood enemy actions and played with that info in mind

  • Takeaway: The most obvious ideas can be bent in ways that can still fit the narrative while serving gameplay

THE VEILED ONES

Game Designer
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sight_subtree.png

Top: Subtree for Looking Glass buff to enemy perception

Bottom: Subtree for Sight detection

PROBLEM 2: PERCEPTION

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CONTEXT

  • Initial Idea 1: Because enemies are invisible, vision cones should be 360 degrees

  • Initial Idea 2: To discourage Looking Glass usage, enemies should get angry when a player looks at them through the artifact

  • Situation: Players did not understand why their actions put them in danger, even with tutorialization

  • Task: Promote stealth gameplay while preserving enemy invisibility and Looking Glass goals

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ACTIONS

  • Implemented 2 vision cones for enemies

    • 360 degree vision cone for close encounters​

    • Standard stealth game vision cones <90 degrees for all other ranges

  • Buffed sight and sound detection for enemies when using the Looking Glass

    • This is what players thought happened BEFORE the change was made!​

  • Increased sound detection when the player sprinted to encourage stealthy movement

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RESULTS

  • Gameplay Outcome: Players engaged with stealth and knew to use the Looking Glass sparingly

  • Takeaway: Player expectations are worth designing around for non-intuitive mechanics

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Top: Father jinn finds player in a crawl space

Bottom: Subtree for crawl space search behavior

PROBLEM 3: PLAYER IMMORTALITY

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CONTEXT

  • Initial Idea: The player should be able to hide from the Father Jinn because he is difficult to escape from

  • Situation: Players would hide in hiding spots without any consequences, making them immortal

  • Task: Preserve difficulty while discouraging overuse of the hiding mechanic

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ACTIONS

  • Implemented a behavior sequence to check hiding spots with multiple conditions​

    • If he sees the player enter one, he will check​

    • While searching an area for the player, he will check hiding spots last

  • If a player is caught in a hiding spot, the Father Jinn will kill them if they cannot get out in time

  • Nerfed movement speed and stimulus detection across the board to make evasion easier

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RESULTS

  • Gameplay Outcome: Players started using the tight level design to escape the Father Jinn

  • Takeaway: In many cases, balance difficulty across ALL behaviors instead of compensating for just one

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