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Dr. Derk's Mutant Battlegrounds

Train and battle AI creatures in a wonky western-themed MOBA!

All Reviews:

Mostly Positive (19) - 73% of the 19 user reviews for this game are positive.

Release Date:

Jul 28, 2020

Developer:

Mount Rouke Studios

Publisher:

Mount Rouke Studios

	Interface	Full Audio	Subtitles
English	✔

Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“This game is on Early Access because I'd like to involve the community as much as possible in developing it further. The game has a basic version of most of the features I want, but I'd like to polish everything a bit more before calling it a finished game.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“Six months to one year.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“There are a couple of areas where I'd like to polish the game more before calling it finished, such as (though this is far from a complete list):
- Make the matchmaking/ladder work better than the current one
- Re-think the items system, both how you get items and how you use them with your Derklings
- I'd like to just add more content (items mostly)
- Iterate on the brains of the Derklings”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The game is feature complete already. See the "About this game" section for a feature list.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“The game will probably be priced similarly, or perhaps a bit higher. I'm also considering adding in-app purchases for cosmetic upgrades.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“There's a feature in the game where you can suggest and vote for improvements, ideas and bugs, which we're already using a lot to iterate on it. There's also a discord channel where you can take part in the discussion!”

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About This Game

Welcome to Dr. Derk's Mutant Battlegrounds!

This is a game where you train Derklings, a creature with a neural network brain, to fight for you! The game takes place in a wonky western-themed MOBA setting, and as you battle other players you earn upgrades and items for your Derklings. The challenge is to figure out the best loadout and training strategy for your Derklings!

There are tons of strategies to explore, as the Derklings can be taught to do an endless number of things (thanks to the neural networks). How about teaching one of them to heal a tanky Derkling? Or make one of them dash through the opponents and go straight for the opponents statue? Or an all-out DPS team? Or try to make them trick the opponents? There's a lot to explore.

The game employs "real" artificial intelligence. The Derklings have neural networks with over 3,000 parameters. They can "see" over 30 things and take decisions on their own. The technology is similar (but simplified) to what researchers at OpenAI used to beat top DOTA players two years ago.

Some things to look forward to:

A dead simple way to get started training your own neural networks creatures. Just load them up, set some goals (bounties) and hit train!
Some technical details; the agents employ a RNN with over 3,000 parameters and 32 memory slots, and are trained with GA (Genetic Algorithm). Plenty enough for them to come up with all kinds of strange, funny and clever solutions!
A bunch of fun upgrades, such as a horn, a shell, huge guns, bubblegum and much more. They all change what the Derklings can do and what they might learn.
A global ladder where you can battle other players and earn new items.
Neural network visualizations for those who wish to dig deeper into the brains of the Derklings and fully understand their behaviors.
A community of people fascinated by AI and neural networks.

Dr. Derk wishes you and your team the best of luck!

System Requirements

Windows

macOS

Minimum:

OS *: Windows 7
Processor: 1.6 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: 512mb Video Memory, capable of supporting WebGL 2.0
Storage: 100 MB available space

* Starting January 1st, 2024, the Steam Client will only support Windows 10 and later versions.