Folkvang Studios

Folkvang Studios Solo Indie game dev who loves making old school Platformer and RPG games. The kind I grew up with. I love gaming, you love gaming.

Sorry no working compile today to get a proper sceenshot. Working out a proper inventory system is quite the feat. So m...
06/14/2025

Sorry no working compile today to get a proper sceenshot.

Working out a proper inventory system is quite the feat. So many different pieces are involved. It's like an entire game in it's own right.

What is involved is the UI, world interactable items. Item types. Stackable items., Equipment. May as well add crafting...

Granted I don't need a weapon/armor system, but it's key data when mousing over the items to show their stats. So it just all spirals into the inventory system. That is essentially the core of a modern game and everything else is just gravy.

06/01/2025

Finally have a working and compiled game… My Yeti Microphone dies… 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

06/01/2025

Happy June! As you know I try to avoid politics. However If i were to ever Pander to any group, it would be Veterans.

I technically don’t have project managers. I do however have a contingent of AI agents that endlessly satiate my curiosi...
05/19/2025

I technically don’t have project managers. I do however have a contingent of AI agents that endlessly satiate my curiosity for weird knowledge. Mostly in the universe.

Then there is Claude who fills my code with endless bugs that take days to fix.

Then Suno calls out to me to write another song. I already listen to my two album releases daily. Those songs just hit.

I need to lock myself in a vault to get stuff done.

05/14/2025

I say this a lot. I make videos games. I'm not a political journalist. So I strive to keep real world crap out of my games.

There's no question I'd travel back through time and punch younger me. However that is also the beauty of experience and...
05/14/2025

There's no question I'd travel back through time and punch younger me. However that is also the beauty of experience and learning. You mess up, learn and move on.

There are legions of people in this world who cannot learn and move on. To them, they call it hypocrisy. When someone learns new information and changes their ways, it is a concept that blows the mind of the simpleton. It's that stubborn clinging onto "what was" that is a massively limiting factor to gaining wisdom and maturity.

Also I am such a simp for Warhammer I had to go full philosopher mode on this picture.

Picture is from the Horus Heresy when Sanguinius fought his brother Horus. Sanguinius stood firm against Horus, seeing his own or his father's near demise, but he valiantly fought on. Sanguinius may actually have wanted to die to silence the voices, the visions, but we will never know. He was a powerful Psykar to say the least, but he only saw doom, gloom, darkness and pain.

The final moments of Sanguinius were long, drawn out, brutal, painful and bloody. He was a powerful and skilled warrior who fought beyond his own body's death. His lungs filled with his own blood, Sanguinius still clung onto life though limp and unable to move. there were no final words to be spoken as he could no longer speak. He was struck so hard to the head, pieces of flesh fell off.

I had only recently read this tragic story and found it quite in line with my own writings and philosophies. The strong die slow and painful, while the weak are granted a quick demise. The Immortal Realm will be filled with great warriors and battles to come.

03/28/2025

While still in development infancy, the AI system is coming along very nicely. Instead of doing standard behavior trees for AI, I am building out a neural network system.

What you are seeing is the NPC's patrolling about, remembering objects seen and picking up health potions and swords. They respond to attacks, will defend and if needed, flee.

At this stage the combat system is very "in development" and only has punches. The health system doesn't properly handle zero health yet. But that isn't the goal at this stage. NPC's collecting items and exploring their world, while learning behaviors is the goal.

Once I can start adding more item variety, like money, food and resources, I'll run this as a massive simulation to train the NPCs for an initial game ready intelligence that will grow with the gamer.

03/16/2025

Not my most exciting updates visually. This dives into the behind the scenes Intelligent AI system I am working on for the in development game.

My goal is to have a learning AI that adapts to the player and presents an increasing challenge. It has emergent behaviors as an Orc could potentially befriend a bunny and have it follow him into battle.

I'm using the old school Neural Network AI to create this. There also will be a StoryTeller AI that starts creating world events based on player actions. The goal is to keep things interesting and engaging without too much scripted out behaviors.

I got into game programming explicitly for AI. Smart, intelligent, learning and emergent AI gameplay. The AI in my "Super Panda" series games was a first step. The AI had a limited awareness of the environment, didn't need waypoints, and could simply be drag and dropped into the level and just work no matter where it was. It made level design and boss fights super easy.

So What I am working on here is my next step in AI design. A neural network fueling the AIController instead of Behavior Trees. The downside is this AI will actually need to be pre-trained before game release. The upside is that this AI can learn and evolve to match and exceed the player. I will need to adjust the learning rate to give the game a decent difficulty curve.

But that is all for now this week. Happy Ides of March.

03/09/2025

Hello and welcome to another game development update. This time I am in a smaller (yes another test level) level to focus on the current gameplay and future look of the Island. These level assets showcase exactly the vision I have for the game's look and feel. The houses look a lot more permanent than the current houses in the Dock town. They're also fully furnished so I don't have to worry about that time consuming task. They also have a pretty long foundation which makes placement so much easier, as I don't need to paint a "no grass" zone under each house. I also don't need to perfectly level the terrain underneath, giving each placement a significantly more natural feel to it. It's also a sneaky little time saver trick too.

I placed in some static NPC's to give the town a little more "life" to it, it's cheap but it worked since this is simply a walking tour of what is to come. The NPC's will all have a purpose and will wander around to wherever they feel like going, since they will have an actual albeit small brain.

Talking about brains. I'm finishing up the neural network brains of my Fauna and "sentient" enemies. They will be learning and adapting to the player over time. Interesting enough if an Orc feeds a rat, it will grow affinity towards him and eventually become a pet... Of course Unreal decides it didn't like my C++ project and refuses to compile. What a headache this has become trying to troubleshoot. Especially since I'm right at the point where the system can finally be tested. I anticipate a week or two before this gets working again.

Here's a quick draft of how I'll be implementing the neural brain for the Enemy NPC system. There's a few more items to ...
03/08/2025

Here's a quick draft of how I'll be implementing the neural brain for the Enemy NPC system. There's a few more items to add in but this is the start. I will most likely add a few more hidden layers depending on performance. Since each monster type gets their own brain instance, it may become a bit intensive. This gist of it is this uses the Unreal EQS and Perception system to form a basic environmental awareness.

The Instance AI will be the World controller, spawning enemies and creating world events while adjusting the challenge level to keep things always interesting.

03/07/2025

Happy International Woman's Day(Early). Sorry about the poor audio quality on the second half, my OBS settings were messed up yet again.

I'm really excited to be getting this video out. A lot has been in the works as far as The Realm is concerned. The Island is the same 4x4km, which probably is far too big. A new settlement has sprung up and is rather amazing. Yes, it is an asset from the Unreal store, however it really adds to the feel I'm trying to get into the game.

I moved the main city to a much better and more natural feeling location. They have a cliffside over the ocean now. Where I have originally placed the city just didn't look right, it was too unnatural.

The dock town also got it's update. The area was smoothed out to be a bit more eroded and the path into the mainland has a much better look, as if it's been there forever. Textures and materials are updated. The housing will be swapped out for better looking, more sturdy looking houses that should be by an ocean dock. Especially in a land where the people never die (for long).

Second half I showcase the parallel project, currently it's just a battle arena with 2 enemy types and a Boss. Nothing super exciting, but still took 2 months to build with Unreal GAS system. This is going to be where I develop and Test the AI agents. Why a side project? It's cleaner, smaller and doesn't take forever to load. I can focus on a very uncluttered environment, then roll in the changes to the main project. It may be a weird way to work, but it is efficient.

The AI will use Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms along with Behavior trees and the EQS system. They will have environmental awareness. A need to find food and health. Will remember the player's moves and technique and slowly adjust their style. They will use group combat tactics and all sorts of other interesting ways to grow in difficulty with the player. Maybe I'll call it "Cylon-AI". I probably can't due to copyright, but I can dream.

The Realm is expanding. Hello all. I haven't done an update in quite a long time. I have been working on yet another com...
03/06/2025

The Realm is expanding.

Hello all. I haven't done an update in quite a long time. I have been working on yet another combat system, this one using Unreal's GAS system. It's not a simple thing for sure. As far as world building, nothing significant has been going on. The Island has a Main City now. The other city moved to a more natural location and the docks are still in place. I am going to do a major asset swap on both my original cities to give the houses a more "permanent" look.

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Charlotte, NC

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(980) 333-1142

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