MindsEye’s ‘Encounter Manager’ Explained

For fans of games like Grand Theft Auto and Cyberpunk 2077, there’s a good chance that MindsEye caught their attention pretty quickly. The third-person action-adventure game takes place in the near future, specifically in a fictional town called Redrock City that is packed to the brim with shady corporations and AI technology. The player must navigate the world as Jacob Diaz, an ex-soldier who has a neural implant in his brain called the MindsEye.

Game Rant recently spoke with Build a Rocket Boy about MindsEye and its combat. With combat being such an integral part of the game, the studio feels strongly about ensuring MindsEye‘s combat encounters are dynamic and able to keep players hooked. To help with this, they use a feature called an “encounter manager.”

MindsEye’s Combat Encounters are Front and Center of the Gameplay

MindsEye blends a futuristic narrative that tackles themes of corruption and AI with high-speed driving and explosive, frenetic combat. Build a Rocket Boy has made it no secret that combat is the main focus of the game. With that in mind, the developer has pulled out all the stops to ensure the entire combat experience is as smooth as possible. As they explained,

”We’ve focused on good fundamentals, making sure our encounters feel flowy, balanced, feeling like an integral part of the story and not tacked-on gameplay. What’s special about MindsEye is that we have human enemies, but also (spoilers!) robots. We worked hard on having robots that feel realistic and challenging without becoming frustrating sacks of HP, and we put particular attention on their interactions with humans. You’ll see humans taking cover behind certain robots, and robots synchronizing certain actions.”

MindsEye Aims to Mix Up its Cover Shooting

One of the problems with third-person cover shooters is that they can start to feel predictable, particularly if combat scenarios happen frequently throughout the game’s campaign. Players can find themselves just camping behind the same piece of cover, popping out to shoot a couple of bad guys before going back to cover to reload and repeat. Build a Rocket Boy has utilized an AI tool called an encounter manager to ensure that this tactic cannot be used in MindsEye, keeping combat fresh. The developer said,

”Our AI is managed by an “Encounter Manager” which distributes roles to different archetypes, and this manager makes sure that there is no lull in our encounters, that enemies are always trying to set up an ambush, to push towards you to get you out of your current cover or defend tactical zones in a level.”

The encounter manager should go some way in stopping combat from feeling repetitive and ensuring players remain engaged in MindsEye‘s gameplay loop. Protagonist Jacob Diaz also makes use of a companion drone as the game progresses, augmenting his combat abilities and providing further variation for the player.