I relaunched this site exactly one month ago yesterday, and it’s been quite an amazing time since then. Thanks to all of you for making it possible! (Scroll down for offers and prizes for July, as well as future directions for the site.)

The full RSS feed has grown from 0 to 200 daily subscribers on average, and newsletter has over 500 members now. There’s an average of nearly 1 comment (feed) per post — although they are distributed very heterogeneously…

June 30th subscriber count.

Anyway, thanks again for helping make this happen! I really appreciate the feedback, of any kind, so keep it coming. Also be sure to spread the word…

July ‘07 Offers and Prizes

For this next month, I’ll be giving out a video of my hour long talk at Apply AI Innovations 2007 entitled AI in Game Development: From Good to Great (which turned out really well in the end). All you have to do is write a review of this site at StumbleUpon; you can do that over on this page. I’ll then send you the link to the video through StumbleUpon within a few days.

Also, I’ve decided to give away an AiGameDev.com T-shirt for the most interesting comment. I’ll personally select the top 5 user posts on the site, and pick one at random to win the prize at the end of the month.

So, you can improve your chances of winning by:

• Asking a question about game AI: anything that you’re curious or passionate about!

• Subscribe to the comments feed to keep in touch with the discussion.

Of course, the full feed is a great way to read the site, so don’t miss out!

The Road Ahead

My AI Wisdom article is mostly out of the way, and Apply AI 2007 is just over, so there’ll be more time for coding! I expect to have a closed beta of a new AI engine within two weeks, so join the Game AI Newsletter to get notified.

As for new articles, most of them so far have been very specific and low-level, both in terms of design and programming. There will be more of those to follow. As the industry moves towards better game AI, there many new techniques to share, and some old ones to rethink. But I’ll also increasingly post about design issues, and some basic introductory articles alongside.

Feedback welcome, as always!