Hands-on Rust

Building a Smarter Monster

Monsters that move randomly aren’t much of a threat, and monsters with too much intelligence can make a game unplayable. Finding a nice balance is the key to making a fun yet challenging game.

In this chapter, you’ll give the monsters perfect knowledge of the dungeon’s floor plan. You’ll also provide the monsters with the player’s location and a relentless need to pursue that player. This creates a “gauntlet” effect in which monsters constantly beset the player until the level is clear.

You’ll begin to turn this “heat-seeking” behavior into more realistic behavior in Chapter 10, ​Fields of View​, but for now, the goal is to create an action-packed challenge.

You’ll start by tagging monsters with the new behavior. ...