Wipe !Companions who read the mechanics
In Wipe!, you go in as a group of four. If you’re short of friends, the AI fills the group, and it knows how to get out of the red zone. On 22 October, the game also became playable with other people.
Wipe! is a group dungeon game, like the ones in World of Warcraft: a tank, a healer, two heroes who hit things. When you don’t have three friends to hand, AI-driven companions take the empty spots.
For that to work, they have to do what you’d expect from a good teammate: read the mechanics. Get out of a red zone, interrupt a spell cast, stand in a golden zone.
On 22 October, I added a first guided dungeon that shows this. On your very first game, in the Caves, banners explain what’s happening on screen: “Zéphyrine gets out of the red zone”, “Sœur Mélisande interrupts Fausse Note!”. You learn the game by watching your teammates.
Same day, multiplayer:
- a friend opens a room with a code, and you join it with your hero;
- up to 4 players, and the AI fills the rest of the group;
- the ready check before you set off, like in WoW: when the leader goes through the door, everyone gets “Ready?”, and the game only starts if everyone has said yes.
To test it, automated games on the Mac, a host and their guests: 25 out of 25 succeeded, including one with four players where all four screens showed exactly the same game.