Taking the reins

The ride-in used to end on black and loop. Now it hands over to the player. About three seconds after Ioma passes the lens, the letterbox bars slide away and the camera swings from the fixed cinematic frame to a chase view behind her. From there you ride.

Why

This is a test of a different way to play. The plan so far has been a classic RTS: a strategy camera, drag-select, right-click. The idea worth trying is to drop selection boxes and play as Ioma herself. You'd influence the people near her with a few simple orders (follow me, hold here, go there, fall back), and they'd act on their own under her authority.

It fits the BRIEF better than drag-select does. Ashfold's identity is independent groups that act competently, and BRIEF §5.5 already names an unsolved problem: unlimited direct control lets the player skip the runners and signals that are meant to carry orders. If Ioma's direct reach is only as far as her voice, that problem goes away. Far-off groups keep their last order until a runner gets to them, and where Ioma stands starts to matter.

Riding her around is the first, smallest step: does controlling the hero directly feel good in this world?

The controls

• W canters; Shift+W gallops.
• A/D turn. Turning is slower at speed, and she leans into it.
• S brakes, then backs up.
• With no keys she coasts to a stop.
• Mouse looks around, and the camera re-centres once she's moving again.

She goes round the larger boulders and trees, her body pitches with the dune slopes, and the dust grows with her pace: nothing at a walk, the full plume at a gallop.

Every frame here comes from a scripted run. The director can hold keys on a timeline from the command line (-LwSet="Drive=6:RW;9.5:RWD;12:RW"), so the agent can ride her and check the result without a person at the keyboard. To play it yourself: tools/ue.sh play.

Rough edges

• Slow gaits look odd. There's only the gallop animation, scaled down at lower speeds, so a walk looks like a slow-motion gallop. Walk and trot cycles are next.
• Movement isn't in the rules yet. It lives in the display code for this test. For real play, her movement becomes a command to the rules library each tick, like any unit's, so replays and the determinism tests keep holding.
• Dust is aimed for the original straight path. The emitters were built for the straight track. After a turn the plume still reads as left behind, but its throw direction should follow her heading.
• Mouse sensitivity is set from engine defaults. It hasn't been tuned by hand yet.

Next

Add four to six companions as real units in the rules library. Give Ioma a visible voice radius and three or four orders, aimed with the camera. Groups out of earshot keep doing what they were told. That should show quickly whether it feels like command or like babysitting. If it works, BRIEF §4.4 and §5.1 change, and the decision gets recorded once it has been played.