What specific artificial intelligence did you create for the Hoodlums?

Yann
In fact, to start with we fell flat on our faces, developing very complex artificial intelligence principles only to come to a very simple conclusion: what's much more important than developing "Artificial Intelligence" is not creating "Artificial Stupidity".

The thing is, if the player only comes across one enemy who behaves in a stupid or incomprehensible way, he's going to think the AI's useless - even if it isn't! And three years of our work then goes down the drain. ?

So, in the first place, we tried to create characters that were very simple to use and debug, even if it meant giving up on interesting functions.

With that starting-point, our aim was no longer for the enemies to seem intelligent because they are intelligent, but rather because they're used by the level designers in intelligent ways.

Benjamin
To give you an example, there's nothing particularly smart about an enemy who jumps between two positions. But if this same enemy crouches down in a hole, then jumps behind a box to avoid Rayman's fists, the player thinks he's dealing with a real GI, though - strictly speaking - the AI may be identical.

Yann
So, rather than create an AI proper, I spent half my time producing information to explain to the level designers what the enemies could do and, most of all, what they couldn't do, to prepare demonstration levels and, of course, to simplify to a maximum the way enemies are used.

And how did you then create the scripted events?

Yann
Technically speaking, each enemy has a fairly simple autonomous behavior based on the automata in their finished state. So, for example, once an enemy's placed in the environment, he can detect Rayman, shoot at him, avoid his fists and move towards a suitable position. This behavior alone is quite enough to provide the player with a challenge.

In addition to that, each enemy can receive messages which take control of his autonomous behavior. You can order him to go to a particular position, for example, or to play a particular animation, and so on. In this way, the level designers script some scenes in much finer detail and strengthen the impression of intelligence. So an enemy who has just detected Rayman can, for instance, operate a mechanism to open a door, call for reinforcements and, lastly, escape with a balloon.

Finally, we were able to develop game situations in which the player confronts enemies who seem to be highly organized. For example, on the moor, Rayman fights the first horde of Hoodlums. Two Fantasnips are on the ground and a third takes refuge on top of a rock where he's difficult to reach. Then, when the player thinks he's finished with them, reinforcements arrive by balloon. If the player runs off, some Hoodlums even start chasing after him. When the player has eliminated them all, he gets the Lock Jaw Superpower and can reach the balloon platforms. But a Hoodstormer turns up and deliberately shoots at the balloons to stop Rayman from going by. So the player has to do battle with the Hoodstormer to be able to continue. Here we have a combat situation with sudden new developments and specific enemy reactions to which you constantly have to adapt.

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