Dissonance

Dissonance is a real time strategy game built on the Source engine. You control a musical avatar who must battle for control of the airwaves. Notes are your resources, and by playing them in time with the music you can summon units, build an army, and conquer the opposing musical faction.

Background

Dissonance combines the gameplay of a real time strategy game with that of a rhythm game to bring players a completely new experience. After selecting a faction (Metal or Techno), the player is dropped into the world where they are placed in control of a musical avatar. Using this avatar, the player can capture towers, which in turn provide a steady stream of note resources. The player can play these notes at any time to summon units and upgrade towers. Ultimately, the game is won by capturing the stage and playing the concert: a long and difficult note sequence.

For more details, see the Guildhall's Dissonance page.

My Role

I developed the artificial intelligence for the enemy team, which was responsible for controlling the behavior of the enemy avatar. This required building a complex multi-layered state machine capable of switching between various high level strategies based on the state of the game. At no point will the enemy avatar cheat: the computer abides by all of the same restrictions that a human player would face.

In addition, I helped to develop the artificial intellegence for individual units. This included developing the behaviors for attacking, defending, and following. There were many details that had to be handled for these states to work smoothly, such as making following units move away from the target if they are blocking its path.

Download

It is highly advised to use an X-Box 360 controller to play this game, although keyboard play is still possible. Gameplay can be somewhat complex, so there is a tutorial available from the menu for your convenience. The ISO is an image of the install disc, which you can load using a program like Daemon Tools.