Today’s update explored a few presentation improvements, but also involved backing out an experiment that didn’t work. The bigger addition is a new way to watch the game’s AI play through a run, with control over the simulation speed.

Experimenting with Floor Visibility I experimented with showing the floor beneath the player and enemy sprites. It didn’t work: the 1bit tileset just makes it very hard to provide the contrast to make it readable; plus I rather like how it’s iconic and reminiscent of a both a pure ASCII mode but also akin to the world being a grid of cards, and the enemies and player placed on top.

Facing Direction in 1-Bit Mode Made the player and monster sprites in 1-bit mode flip facing based on latest movement or attack.

Fixing the Minimap and Projectiles I addressed two rendering issues. On desktop, clicking the minimap caused it to appear for just one frame before immediately dismissing itself. Projectiles also had a duplication problem, with a single shot sometimes being drawn multiple times. Both are worth fixing before adding more visual complexity to the game.

Watching the AI Play

This was probably the coolest change I introduced today. I added an autoplay mode that lets me watch the AI play through the game, using the same AI logic that drives the automated balance tests, so I can observe actual gameplay rather than a separate demonstration behavior. This included a speed setting, allowing me to slow things down to inspect individual decisions or accelerate through a run to see how the AI handles an entire level. This could become a useful bridge between automated testing and hands-on observation, making it easier to spot behaviors that statistics alone don’t explain.