Work / Vanguard Outrider 2

About

Vanguard Outrider 2 is the latest demo game for PlayFab, created to highlight the latest APIs and services. It has classic RPG gameplay and art created by Microsoft Copilot Designer. New features include:

Economy v2 system for increased flexibility and performance
Azure Functions instead of Cloud Script allow for programming in C#
Social logins and a real account system show best practices

Technology

Like the previous game, this is a static React website written in TypeScript. Its codebase is easier to navigate than the original, owing to an additional five years of experience.

AI art

All images for this game were made with Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompts were very long, often hitting token limits. One tip is to write down the prompts for each image. That lets you modify some keywords to change perspective. This is how the character portraits are mostly consistent with combat sprites.

Most background images took dozens of attempts and modifications to find an appropriate image. Characters took hundreds.

Advice:

When you find an image you like, save the prompt used to generate it in a text file next to the image
Include a tone on landscape images, e.g. “dark and mysterious tone,” “hopeful and optimistic tone”
Character art looks better with keywords like “dynamic motion,” “combat pose,” or “exciting pose”
Break out of the typical AI style with style keywords like “dark and macho,” “inclusive and diverse,” or “detailed and dreamlike”
Use a “reduce noise” function in your image editor to clean up image graininess

Headshots of Sara and Warren, respectively a woman with grey hair in a yellow cloak, and an older male soldier with brown hair, a beard, and a green cape. — Sara and Warren are some of the starting characters.

The interior of a fishing store, well stocked, with warm light pouring in through the windows. — It takes a careful eye and dozens of tries to select an image without any significant AI errors.

A green potion and a magical blue berry, both on grey tiles. — I used the 'white background' keyword to generate items.

At night, a fishing town is on fire. A large magical tree on a cliff overlooks the scene. — This scene uses 'dreamy tone' to get the atmosphere right.

Status

Vanguard Outrider 2 is currently in active development.