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4 | 2D pathfinding finding smooth paths I was trying to implement a simple pathfinding, but the outcome is less satisfactory than what I intended to achieve. The thing is units in games like Starcraft 2 move in all directions whereas units in my case only move in at most 8 directions (Warcraft 1 style) as these 8 directions direct to next available nodes (they move from a tile to next neighboring tile). What should I do in order to achieve the result as in Starcraft 2? Shrink the tile size? On the picture you can see a horizontal line of rock tiles being obstacles, and the found path marked as green tiles. The red line is the path I want to achieve. |
4 | Why do Monsters drop things? Why do Monsters drop things in so many games? It creates all sorts of problems, including in game gold hyper inflation questionable moral implications, if there is a strong incentive toward killing things but no incentive not to Monster killing giving XP is equally bad you rename an ingame currency to XP, the mechanics stay the same. Here you have something like quot fighting force inflation, quot so after some levels you have to have giant giants attacking your small figure or it stops being interesting. This is just hyper inflation written a different way. Is it enough reward if a monster stops killing you? What benefits of monster killing rewards make up for these problems, or how can we compensate for those problems? |
4 | two part dice pool mechanic I'm working on a dice mechanic resolution system based on the Ghost Echo (hereafter shortened to G E) tabletop RPG. Specifically, since G E can be a little harsh dealing with consequences and failure, I was hoping to soften the system and add a little more player control, as well as offer the chance to evolve player characters into something unique, right from creation. So, here's the mechanic Players roll 2 separate d12 against each of the two statistics for their character (each is a number from 2 11, and may be rolled above or below depending on the nature of the action attempted, rolling your stat exactly always fails). Depending on the success for that roll, they add dice to the pool rolled for a modified G E style action. The acting player gets two dice anyhow, and I am debating offering a bonus die for each success, or a single bonus die for succeeding on both of the statistic compared rolls. Once the size of the dice pool is set, the entire pool is rolled, and the players are allowed to assign the rolled dice to a goal and a danger, one to each. Assigned results are judged as follows 1 4 means the attempted goal fails, or the danger comes true. 5 8 is a partial success at the goal, or partially avoiding the danger. 9 12 means the goal is achieved, or the danger avoided. My concerns are twofold Firstly, is the two stage action too complicated, with two rolls to judge separately before anything can happen? Secondly, are the statistics involved going too far in softening the game? I've run some basic simulations, and the approximate statistics follow 2 dice (up to) 3 dice (up to) 4 dice failure 33 25 20 partial 33 35 35 success 33 40 45 I'd appreciate any advice that addresses my concerns or offers to refine my simulation (right now the first roll is statistically modeled as sign(1d12 1d12), where 0 is a success). |
4 | Loading enemies in a 2d platformer What would be the best way to load enemies in a level. For example take Mario, are enemies rendered at their x,y positions as the game is loaded or when the player walks past a specific x value. Wouldn't this mean that you would have multiple if conditions checking whether the player has reached a specific x value to spawn an enemy this doesn't seem like a very good solution to this problem at least to me. What would be the recommended way? |
4 | Games for Facebook, iPhone, Web if I want to build a game for web, facebook, and iphone, do I need to build 3 completely different versions? I know there is a new company that is "build once, launch anywhere," but I'm asking about current best practice and methodology in doing this. |
4 | What are the differences between random encounters and permanent mobile enemies? Random Encounter A player has a 10 chance to encounter an enemy. while moving through a 5x5 grid. Permanent Mobile Enemies There is one enemy that constantly moves through the 5x5 grid and only encounters the player when they land on the same grid. Also, both the enemy and the player cannot see each other until they meet. Obviously, the random encounter will give better performance, but are there any benefits through implementing the second option? |
4 | What does 'Discretizing Space' mean in the context of paper prototyping I was browsing some lecture slides by Eric Anderson for his Cornell course CS 4154 (Analytics driven Game Design). In a series of slides he mentions discretizing space as a way of paper prototyping action games. As an example he illustrates with a screen shot of Super Mario with a grid overlay (shown below). Unfortunately the slides do not expound on how this technique is used. How is discretizing space used to prototype platform games or action games generally? |
4 | Intellectual rights to game concepts For a client I might be making a small puzzle game about getting a item out of a puzzle. The concept will strongly resemble this game http www.alibaba.com product gs 355972089 Car Park Game Brain Teaser IQ.html But will not be about cars or parking, and we will make our own "levels". The game will not be a board game, but a smartphone game (iOS Android devices). But does ThinkFun sit on the concept so heavily that I can't make a game like this ? And where does "the line" go to what is acceptable? The game will be free, and we are a non US company (based in Denmark, Europe) if that makes any difference. |
4 | How to make a fun slot machine? We currently have a simple slot machine in our online virtual world game. You set the amount you want to bet (in virtual money) and pull the lever, and depending on the 3 figures (there's only one line) you get a reward, a free round, lose some more money, or most of the time, get nothing at all. You can instantly pull the lever again. The previous bet will be maintained. At the moment this slot machine isn't really fun to play. The chances of winning something are pretty low (though when you win, you can win a lot). When you pull the lever, the result is determined (though not shown) immediately, so there's also no way influence the outcome of the wheels. How can it be made more fun? |
4 | Expected numbers for user engagement I run a free to play online game that involves collecting creatures and simply clicking on a button to give them a small amount of EXP. The idea is to do this for other people and they're likely to return the favour and help you make your own progress. The initial tutorial guides you through the basic idea until you've successfully obtained a full Party of 6 before leaving you to your own devices, to make your own objectives and stuff. I've noticed that players who make it through the tutorial tend to stay quite engaged with the game, but I also found these numbers 25 of users join but never complete the first step of the tutorial, that is they never hatch their very first Egg. A further 25 of users drop out of the game before finishing the tutorial, so having hatched only 1 5 Eggs. Barely 50 of registered users actually complete the tutorial. The problem is that I've never run this kind of game before. This is my first real project, but it's been going for several years now. I don't have any kind of baseline on what numbers to expect. I can only imagine reasons right now, such as it being quite jarring to people that, in order to make progress, they have to help others make their progress and hope they return the favour. So we have about half our users leaving before the tutorial is complete. Is this kind of thing normal? Am I worrying too much about this? |
4 | How do I model diagram turn based combat? I'm developing a turn based combat system for an RPG, and I'd like to know if there is any kind of best practice around diagrammatically modelling something like this. The ideal modelling paradigm would capture quite a few things, including entities (and their stats status) entity actions interactions positioning terrain effects temporal effects Do I use something from UML? BPMN? A combination? Do I home bake something? To clarify I'm not looking for any advice on designing the system. I'm already quite far along with that. I'm looking for a good way to diagram the model. |
4 | Explicit difficulty selection without breaking the game flow According to the flow theory, in short, if the challenge is too hard, from flow state the player will go into an anxiety state, and if the challenge is too easy, he will go into a boredom state. This is fixed with dynamic difficulty, where a system tracks the player's performance and adjusts the difficulty. But what about explicit difficulty selection which is often seen in shooters (Easy, Medium, Hard)? With such predefined difficulties, the challenge will always be either too easy or too hard, won't it? Therefore we cannot achieve a flow state, and following that, an immersion into the game is less likely. How do we fix this? |
4 | Where does game logic belong? I've always had a hard time wrapping my head around the 'high levels' of game logic and where how large components, such as collision detection physics, rendering, and user input, interact with one another. What I'm asking is how you deal with these higher level interactions. Here is what I am doing interface Stage() or a "scene" as many call it. Manages the logic for Actors init() update() update this stage render() render this stage StageManager() implements Stage a stage that manages stages ) var stages array lt Stage gt init() create a MainStage amp other stages that may be used in this specific game update() logic for checking which stage should be active render() tell the active stage to render getActiveStage() MainStage() implements Stage var mainCharacter var actors array lt GameObject gt var ... init() create the player, game world, other initialization stuff update() collision detection, check mainCharacter state, etc render() render all the Actors on this stage handleMouseClick() handleKeyBoardEvent() Main() created on game start var manager new StageManager() updateGameState() manager.update() loop renderState() manager.render() loop My main gripe with this is that the StageManager and all other Stages will become enormous and unwieldy as the game scales over time. Off the top of my head, some components can be delegated out such as a Stage uses a PhysicsManager, but there would still be all the keyboard events and what not. I was thinking of making individual Actors listen to events and giving them an update() method, thus encapsulating what an Actor should do at any given point. However, I would run into complications when an Actor needed game state information (game time, a "power up" Actor needing the player's speed) and I would no longer have Stages as Actors are now managing themselves. |
4 | Is there a rule of thumb to scale up the environment by 33 ? I was reading an article on Gamasutra called A Rational Approach to Racing Game Track Design, and I found the following A commonly acknowledged rule for third person games is that the environment should be scaled up by a factor of around 33 percent (on page 2) I am just curious has anyone else heard of such a rule, and if so, where else could I find references to it? |
4 | How to make players be creative in a game, if the game cannot evaluate it? I am working on a prototype game with several funny visual effects that the player can trigger. The player can be quite creative in the way to use or combine these effects but it seems impossible to make detect evaluate this creativity by the computer. So, from a game design perspective, I wonder what could be the features to drive the players to be creative (experiment various combinations). For the moment i think about "Draw something" where the result is evaluated by other players. I think about levels designed by "Little Big Planet" players but this aspect is out of the core game. I think also about "Minecraft" but I do not understand really how this game encourages the people to be creative (except of the open world). Please tell me if you have any ideas, articles or references that could help me coping with this problem. |
4 | Lag compensation with networked 2D games I want to make a 2D game that is basically a physics driven sandbox activity game. There is something I really do not understand though. From research, it seems like updates from the server should only be about every 100ms. I can see how this works for a player since they can just concurrently simulate physics and do lag compensation through interpolation. What I do not understand is how this works for updates from other players. If clients only get notified of player positions every 100ms, I do not see how that works because a lot can happen in 100ms. The player could have changed direction twice or so in that time. I was wondering if anyone would have some insight on this issue. Basically how does this work for shooting and stuff like that? Thanks |
4 | How much is too much? From a game design perspective, I've got the following idea Traditional Tower Defense game. an open, mazeable field as monsters approach the castle. "Towers" consist of ground pounding units like foot soldiers, moats, and other things. yawn However, I'm adding the following features "Town" a separate screen for upgrading units and buying new abilities. "Tap Defense" There are archers sitting on the wall with excellent range tap monsters to shoot them. RoF, Damage upgradeable in town. "Tap Defense " for cash purchases, you can buy wizard spells that deal mega damage (think Eagle in Angry Birds). "Underground" the paid version will come with Dwarven Sappers, which give you an additional screen of "mazing" and towers "underneath" the current map, so you can build defenses in at least 2 levels. Is mazing, tapping, and 2 z levels too much? What kinds of things should be considered? I already know that pausing while placing structures will probably be needed (or wanted). Anything else? |
4 | Why do modern games not feature extra lives? In the late 80s and early 90s, most games had an extra life mechanic. The player started with limited lives (often three) and dying depleted one of them. If they still had some remaining, they would respawn at the last savepoint. The game would end once all lives had been used and they had to start from the beginning. Players could obtain additional lives during the game. This mechanic was so widely used that it was rather the exception when games didn't use it. It was and still is one of the most recognized video game clich s (the above image has been printed on countless shirts). Nowadays, this mechanic seems to have been forgotten. Almost every modern game gives the player infinite retries from the last save. Many even let the player make their own savepoints with a quicksave mechanic. Those few that try to be different tend to go for the other extreme The "roguelike" mechanic gives the player no retries. What happened to the middle ground of having extra lives? What game design revolution caused the game industry to abandon this feature? When proposing an answer to this question, please try to back up your answer with citations and factual, objective evidence as much as possible so as to avoid dragging this post into the territory of being "too opinion based." Focus on "what" happened and "when," which specific examples. |
4 | Web single player 2d top down RPG background image, sprites, and new level loading I'm making a web single player 2D top down rpg using JavaScript (create js library) and have a couple questions. For the background image, I've currently loaded a 1000x1000 bitmap to represent the background for my rpg world (per level). It's drawn in relation to the camera (aka the canvas 500x500) so not all of it is on the screen at the same time. If it's not on the screen, is it still using resources to be drawn? I eventually want to have a much larger "world", which will require a much larger bitmap... What is the best way to load a background image? And what about sprites? I'm assuming if I create several sprite objects with bitmaps... even if they aren't on the camera, they are still using resources? This may slow down the game. Level loading If I walk to another level, or go inside a building, I'd like to load that bitmap... Is there a specific way to architect level loading? Thank you! |
4 | What is a game mechanic? I am trying to understand exactly what defines a game mechanic, and whether it is the same as a gameplay mechanic. There are many different sources online that try to define this but they appear to be quite inconsistent. Two that go into quite a bit of depth are below https en.wikipedia.org wiki Game mechanics (game context) https badgeville.com wiki Game Mechanics (gamification context) I understand the concepts of objectives, challenges and rules in a game, but exactly how do game mechanics tie into these? For example, are game mechanics simply abstract ways of motivating users (eg. points, achievements, discovery etc)? Or are they more practical aspects of a game such as a cover system, or how a character moves, jumps etc? |
4 | Player Ranking System Already posted this on another forum but I'll repost it here because I'm curious if this is a good forum for game design questions. I'm looking to design a player ranking system for my game. The game is similar to a racing game where you get a score for individual tracks you play (based only on your own performance). Beside the score for tracks played I want a player rank. The purpose of this player rank is to Make you feel like you are progressing and getting better Encourage you to play more Encourage you to play better and improve your skill Be enjoyable Another way to state it is that I want to encourage playing more levels (increasing amount of play) as well as improving skill (getting higher score). It's not necessary for the rank to actually reflect your skill. Although, I suspect some amount of accuracy is needed for the score to feel meaningful. The only ranking system I'm familiar with is the ELO type ranking system which I feel is lacking in some ways. Although it accurately reflect the skill of the player it has the problem of not being enjoyable in my experience it punishes bad plays, gives no rewards for trying experimenting with new plays. It also puts a lot of pressure on you to perform well in every game which discourages casual play. Any ideas? Thanks |
4 | What does 'Discretizing Space' mean in the context of paper prototyping I was browsing some lecture slides by Eric Anderson for his Cornell course CS 4154 (Analytics driven Game Design). In a series of slides he mentions discretizing space as a way of paper prototyping action games. As an example he illustrates with a screen shot of Super Mario with a grid overlay (shown below). Unfortunately the slides do not expound on how this technique is used. How is discretizing space used to prototype platform games or action games generally? |
4 | 8 Directional Character Spritesheet Generator I've searched for the past hour and didn't find anything worth looking. I'm creating a game, and I'm just starting. I found this site to help me create my characters, but I want something to create characters with 8 directions, instead of just 4. Are there any of these online? I don't need the animation part for now, just the 8 direction sprites |
4 | what are the essential things to be looked upon in game design I've made a couple of games now. Starting from basic hobbyist projects like snake , I advanced into platform based games, board games, turn based games. While doing the latter of these projects I had to spent a lot of time redesigning certain concepts, sometimes even throwing away certain logic. So always I've felt the time wasted could have been avoided or at least reduced, if I had properly planned each and every stage of my game. Though i can try to do it on paperwork or by a word file with bulleted points. I think there ought to be some other way of game design. Do help me with suggestions and other game design patterns being followed, either as an indie game developer or as a game company. I can learn from both. I am not looking for game design e books, since there is already a thread for that. I would like to get suggestions and game design patters. Thank you. |
4 | Tips on thinking of a good game mechanic? I am trying to make a turned based rpg and I really want to know how can i make original game mechanics like Undertale with it's sparing system.I am not really that creative to think of a good game mechanic,I just need tips on how to improve my creativity for game dev because it is really hard for me to think of something original. Thanks! |
4 | How does UNO determine how often do 4, 2 other special cards occur in a deck game? For UNO like card games, what factors would one consider when they wanted to set a reasonable proc rate of receiving a special card (for example in UNO's case 4, 2, color wheel, reverse, skip)? What factors should I consider when designing a similar game? I understand probabilities etc. are involved in this. I would appreciate if someone can demonstrate the mathematics concepts behind it. |
4 | Why don't game developers change game stories after launch? Game developers have shown willing to remove and add game features, change art assets and remake parts of their games in following updates, but why don't they ever change the plot? Some times parts are added to the story, but only as attachments, never revisions. Why is plot thought as a feature beyond editing, even if it would enhance player experience just as much as any graphical update or gameplay tweak? P.S. I would like to ask for a game narrative writing story tag, and they are just as important part of game development as game mechanics. P.S. This is as broad a question as why not to release source code. Therefore I think it is not too broad for answering. |
4 | Is the city of the GTA, L.A. Noire, Assasins Creed or Saint Row games considered a level? I'm trying to figure out whether or not the worlds in which these games take place are levels or not, for the sake of level design. I consider the world to be one big level and all the missions and such being levels as well. While most levels in other games have specific goals, there are pretty much no objectives tied to the "mega levels" of these games. I just wanted to get some opinions. |
4 | Would studying psychology give an advantage to a game designer? I've recently read The Art of Game Design and am currently reading Why Reality is Broken and am wanting to learn more about the psychology behind game design. I'm a computer science student but I'm intrigued by the subject and have thought about minoring in psychology. For the veteran game design people out there, would academically studying psychology give a huge advantage to a game designer? There is one class in particular called Sensation and Perception that gets into what goes on in the nervous system when we are stimulated through our five senses and how these stimulations creates certain perceptions. So, basically is this over doing it for someone who wants to create games become a game designer? What originally caught my interest in this subject was reading about how zynga hired a psychologist to help design the mechanics for farmville. |
4 | What are the other three "game dynamics"? Seth Priebatsch recently gave a tedtalk entitled Building the game layer on top of the world. In it, Seth described four game dynamics, techniques used by game designers to make games fun and addictive. The four dynamics that Priebtsch described were Appointment dynamic a dynamic in which to succeed, one must return at a predefined time to take a predetermined action. (Real life example happy hour) Influence and status the ability of one player to modify the behavior of another's actions through social pressure. (Example different color credit cards as a reflection of status) Progression dynamic a dynamic in which success is granularly displayed and measured through the process of completing itemized tasks. (Example linkedin profile progress bar) Communal discovery a dynamic wherein an entire community is rallied to work together to solve a challenge. (Example finding interesting content on Digg.com) Seth explained these four game dynamics in his talk and added that his company has an additional three. Does anyone know (or have any theories) about what the other three game dynamics are? |
4 | Server client communication Quick and verbose or involved and compact? TL DR Does the short development time required for HTTP XML offset its size issues compared to developing a custom protocol? As some of you might have divined I'm currently working on a turn based strategy game of the massively multiplayeriffic variety. The target turn length is anywhere from 6 hours and up, so synchronization will be, on the whole, a bit easier than, say, an FPS or an MMORPG. The issue then, is how the clients connect to the server. As I see it, I have basically two options HTTP using some manner of XML exchange, or direct socket communication using some arcane protocol. Because casual gaming is the "big thing" nowadays the idea is that the game will be the sort of game where you can pick it up, play for 5 or 10 minutes, and then put it down and come back the day after an approach that would greatly benefit from having the communication be stateless (as in HTTP). On the other hand, target devices include the iPad and (perhaps) other mobile devices down the road any protocol used would probably benefit greatly from being compact, if not so much for the speed (see above), but more in order to not cost the user everything he has if he plays on the road using cellular data networks. On the gripping hand using HTTP as the basic communication protocol greatly facilitates the creation of a web based client. All of this leaves me, as far as I can see, anyway, with 3 options XML over HTTP A bit of bloat, but easy to implement in all cases. Custom protocol Allows for a very streamlined protocol, but trickier to implement. All of the above Small protocol for application clients big protocol for web clients, increases implementation complexity and maintenance time required geometrically. Does the short development time required for HTTP XML offset its size issues compared to developing a custom protocol? |
4 | Authoritative Server Movement and Collision I am attempting to write a proof of concept in preparation to do my first networked game. I have decided to do an authoritative server with client side prediction. I am trying to implement my architecture like this diagram from an excellent article on the subject In the article, the data that is synchronized is the player's position. This works great for turn based games, but what about real time games? In my game, each entity has a position and a velocity vector. It is the server's job to detect collisions. I have attempted to send the server velocity changes, but I am having an issue where the server's position and the client's position begins to diverge because their clocks are not perfectly synchronized. So my question is, is it standard practice to send positions as the synchronized state between a client and server instead of a velocity vector? Will changing to synchronizing positions instead of velocities open my game up to cheating? Is there a better way to synchronize the players' states with the server? Also, if I use positions, doesn't that mean that the other players are going to be seen in a past state? Will that mean that the server might send a player killed message before the collision is visible to the player in the present? |
4 | what should the size of a flash game in Facebook be I'm developing a flash game and i want to put it in Facebook ,My question is the Proper maximum size for it. 500 KB 1 MB ?? |
4 | Defensive statistic mechanics There are many systems where attack statistics are opposed by defense statistics Strict HP (damage defense) Threshold HP (damage defense? damage 0) Reciprocal HP (damage defense) Just to name a few, and there are variations on those as well Reciprocal threshold HP damage defense ? (damage defense) 0 Note that this is by no means an exhaustive list, since many games use multiple stats to arrive at a final "defensive" result (agility, current speed, movement relative to attacker, flanking) that's applied to any potential damage. What drives the selection of one relationship over another? |
4 | Player stats include additional attribute I am currently running a role playing game called DNDBBS and would like to know If there is stats for Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, Piety, should there be one for Charisma? Is this standard DND? Edited 07 31 2018 11 00 00 CST The DNDBBS is a Modem (POTS) oriented multi node text based Adventure game. It can be found on google or http www.filegate.net pdnbasic Edited 08 03 2018 21 25 00 CST I decided to also add Beauty and Glamour for Lady class. |
4 | Turning a board game idea into a browser based, slow paced gameplay Suppose I want to create a strategy game with global mutable state shared between all players (think game board). But unlike a board game, I don't want it to be real time action and or turn based. Instead, players should be able to log in at any time of the day and spend a fixed number of action points per day as they wish. As opposed to a few hours, game sessions would run over a few weeks. This is meant to reward good strategy rather than time spent playing (as an alternative, hardcore players could always play multiple games in parallel instead) as well as all kind of issues related to live playing like disconnections and synchronization. The game should remain addictive still have a low time investment footprint for casual players. So far so good, but this still leaves open the question of when to solve actions and when they should be visible. I want to avoid "ninja play" like doing all your moves just a few minutes before daily point reset to take other players by surprise, or people spamming F5 to place a well timed action which would defeat the whole point of a non real time game. I thought of a couple of approaches to that Resolve all events in a single scheduled process running once a day. This basically means a "blind" gameplay where players can take actions but don't see their results immediately. The thing is, I played a similar browser game a few years ago and didn't like the fact that you feel disconnected and powerless until there's that deus ex machina telling you what really happened during all that time. You see the world evolve in large increments of one day, which often doesn't seem like seeing it evolve at all. For actions that have an big impact on the game or on other players (attacks, big achievements), make them visible to everyone immediately but delay their effect by something like 24 hours. Opposing players could be notified when such an event happens, so that they can react to it. Do you have any other ideas how I could go about solving this ? Are there any known approaches in similar existing games ? |
4 | How should I design my score to visually accommodate large numbers? I am creating a simple punching game that counts the total number of punches dealt. Could you suggest a way for my game to visually accommodate very large numbers ( 100000). Currently my wire frame looks like this How should I display very large numbers here? I thought about shrinking the fonts, and creating abbreviations, but I'm not sure it's the proper way to go. |
4 | Investigation stage before starting a game I was thinking about how to organize the stage about getting informed about whatever game is needed to develop, what would others do. For example, if I wanted to develop a game about car racing, I should figure out all the factors during the race, from the car factor to the pilots, etc., environmental factors like weather, circuit conditions, etc. How does one manage this stage? Thanks. |
4 | Developing internet sweepstake games I have absolutely no idea about game developing but want to know following things about internet sweepstake games Click on demo and play any of the game. What technology (programming language) is used to develop these games. e.g. Flash, Silverlight, etc. If I wish to develop such game(s) what is the best technology to use, how much time it might take to learn and develop a simple commercial product. Is the algorithm code behind the scene re usable while changing the front graphics. I mean a scalable adjustible game. In case I wish to hire a game programmer what would be the approximate cost or per hr charge for such developer. Any good books or online tutorial videos to learn see this in action? Or any other ideas or suggestions? Sorry if these are lot of questions but this is the only good place I see asking such questions. I will more than happy to post them as separate questions if that is necessary. |
4 | Why should I choose to design a health bar rather than heart containers? When designing any hero based game, be it adventure, RPG, brawler, or similar, you eventually need to decide on your health system. Barring any regenerative systems with zero UI (like Call of Duty), should you use a discrete set of heart containers, Zelda style, or a continuous health bar, like Street Fighter? Here are some points of contention that I've been thinking about Hearts are easier to understand (very clear how many hits you can take) Hearts give a better sense of accomplishment when expanding (A whole extra heart! Rather than just a slightly longer bar (or worse, no change)) Hearts grow to take up a lot of screen real estate, while health bars can stay compact Health bars allow for really fine control over health damage balancing (using float rather than int) Since I haven't been able to find any relevant game design articles on the subject, I'd really appreciate if everyone with some knowledge on the matter, or even just some insightful links would contribute, thanks! |
4 | Correctly done level scaling? A lot of role playing games have a system where npcs scale with the player level and become stronger, on the surface it might seem genial but in most games either it doesn't change anything or it makes low levels enemies ridiculously hard to beat or sometimes impossible, like in oblivion. I came up with the idea of making nps not scale with the level of the player but scale with stats. For example a level 1 wolf has a base attack that deals 5 of the players maximum HP as damage with each hit, but is mitigated by defense. Therefore the attack will remain consistent in strength even when the player is max level but can be blocked by sacrificing damage to build a lot of denfese or by becoming better at parrying attacks. Is there any other mechanism I can implement to make the npcs stronger through all the levels without making them ridiculously invincible or giving them one hit mechanics that instantly kill the player? |
4 | Articles about a plot in an open world There are plenty of articles about open world game design and writing plots. But have you guys come across articles or blog entries about designing an engaging plot in an open world game? What i mean by this? In TES Morrowind you're introduced to mechanics and are given the "main quest" within the first 5 minutes and then you're free to go, learn, kill, do whatever you want. I've spent hundreds of hours playing the game, but i have never got to doing the "main quest" and i'm sure alot of people are in the same situation, be it Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim. Maybe it's the power of TES games and a true testiment to how great RPGs they are, however for me, thinking as a designer, it seems like a massive design failure. Maybe it's the fact that there's no actual threat that needs to be dealt with, maybe it's that, amongs all the well designed and interesting quest within the game, the "main quest" just doesn't seem so interesting. I've got a game idea in the back of my head, i want to create an action platformer, but the "level selection" would be open world style "dunegons" like you find in MMOs. This is a vague and undeveloped idea, so don't focus on it, i didn't give this design much thought, however an issue arose, i can't figure out, in general, how to make the player care about the open world aspect (f.e. dealing with roaming, pillaging parties, doing a gauntlet run to get some special armor, clearing a water source from enemies, etc.) while "forcing him" to finish the game, carrot on a stick kind of way. There are "crazy" people who will go search everywhere between cutscenes in FF games, but i'm aiming at the general audience. I want to create a subtle system for guiding people throughout the game to a goal, while giving them an option of gaining power any way they want. This may aswell be impossible, but it doesn't hurt to ask. I'm looking for articles or musings on this matter. Not solutions (since there's no design document, no direct solutions matter at this point), just thoughts from other people, probably with other games as a reference. |
4 | How to make players be creative in a game, if the game cannot evaluate it? I am working on a prototype game with several funny visual effects that the player can trigger. The player can be quite creative in the way to use or combine these effects but it seems impossible to make detect evaluate this creativity by the computer. So, from a game design perspective, I wonder what could be the features to drive the players to be creative (experiment various combinations). For the moment i think about "Draw something" where the result is evaluated by other players. I think about levels designed by "Little Big Planet" players but this aspect is out of the core game. I think also about "Minecraft" but I do not understand really how this game encourages the people to be creative (except of the open world). Please tell me if you have any ideas, articles or references that could help me coping with this problem. |
4 | Board Game Design in Cocos2d I am going to start a chess like board game. And for that I have reviewed a number of things available. One is http www.mapeditor.org , using which you can create a grid base games. Another option is geekgameboard for iphone available at http mooseyard.lighthouseapp.com projects 23201 geekgameboard Now I want your expert opinion on what would be better to make a game in cocos2d, using the first option or the second option? Both looks promising to me and give good control over board design. PS Sorry for duplicates, I found about the https gamedev.stackexchange.com lately after posting it on stackexchange. So I am just posting it here again as I feel this is a more relevant board. |
4 | How to make 4 way walking animation in game maker studio 2? So I am trying to make a 4 way movement for my character, and I cant seem to get the walking animations to work for it. The character moves fine, but whenever he moves, the walking animation doesn't play. I figured it was because I made it so when the button was held down, it put it as the sprite for that direction constantly, so it could never get to the next frame. does anyone know how to bypass this? (btw I am using D amp D) |
4 | How to make healing in an exploration game interesting I'm creating a game with a heavy focus on exploration, though I'm at a bit of a loss for healing. The problem is that I don't like the idea of enemies randomly dropping health, as this usually results in grinding when at low health and not near any healing stations(Metroid, Axiom Verge), and I don't want to copy the Soul Focus system from Hollow Knight(Combat system has already been stolen by me 3), but Hollow Knight is the only game I've played with a focus on exploration that made healing interesting. I've also thought of auto regeneration, however that can easily lead to the player cowarding during a boss fight while they heal, and that would break the flow of the gameplay. I've also considered something like striking a foe heals 1 8th of a health point, however this leads to the player feeling less tense after they take a gain 1 8th which will keep them from dying if they get hit again, and it makes the game feel like its all offense and little defense. I've also though about an items approach where the player has to eat something or drink something to heal, however this doesn't really encourage healing as once you run out of items, you can no longer heal until you get some more(Legend of Zelda). I've also though about no healing at all, however I noticed that when exploring and then you take a dumb hit before a hard boss, or a dumb hit before the boss gets hard(cough Cuphead cough), the player will just either commit suicide or run back to a healing station. What can I do to make healing interesting, and not break the flow of gameplay? This is a 2D platformer, and jumping is really important in the combat. |
4 | Personal Custom Card Game I had the idea, to make a custom card game based off an Anime i like. I was wondering if it would be legal to have such printed out (using a custom card board game service) for personal use. I would only play it with friends and not make any money off of it. |
4 | How can I encourage population balance between two factions? I'm making a game in which players must choose between two factions after reaching a certain level. PvP and PvE are not influenced by this choice as it's mostly for role play and the sense of belonging to a community (and perhaps seasonal events). The two factions can communicate. Preferably, guild members must be in the same faction and it should be impossible or not easy to change factions. I fear that if a faction starts to have the majority of players, new players will want to join it to play with their friends or have more guild choices. How could I mitigate or prevent that? Are there alternatives? |
4 | Can i make a Game for play store on my own I am not sure what i am asking for. Sorry if this question look stupid. I love to play games on android and pc . Some times very cool ideas strike me , but i don't know what to do with them. and they vanish over time. I got no computer science background , since i am a math student . Although i learned C for a week for a exam. In short I know C but just the alphabets. Is it possible that i can learn to make games. What should i have to learn. Is it possible to learn from youtube. Since it's like side hobby i can give it few hours a day ( not money ). |
4 | I need an enemy spawning algorithm for a 2D tower defense I need an enemies spawning algorithm for a 2D tower defense game. I have 4 maps, each has 4 stages and each stage has 40 rounds. I need to create an algorithm which will instantiate waves, increase health and change their type in new rounds, new stages and in new maps. I need your suggestions and ideas to resolve my problem. It should be done like in geoDefense and Fieldrunners. Lets take an example which is somewhat in my mind MAP1 Stage 1, on Rounds 1,2,3,4 loop around with ' 5' on it so also in Rounds 6,7,8,9 ...so on... instantiate 'Type 1 swarm' after increment( 5) add 'Type 1 swarm some value' so that if previous 'Type 1 swarm' (on rounds 1,2,3,4) has 3 enemies, after above increment( 5) 'Type 1 swarm' has 3 some value. The rounds multiple of 5 will instantiate 'Type 2 swarm some value', and as round increases health value should also increase. On Map 1 Stage2 and other Maps and stages repeat the above process with some slight difficulty and change type swarm1 and swarn2 with other swarn types. I hope you people got what I actually need. I don't want to hardcode the rounds because there is also an endless option in my game and hard level would have 100 rounds instead of 40. Any other spawning ideas algorithms followed by TD game programmers designers. |
4 | How to show your game vision? I am developing a game and have a clear vision of how it works, what key features it has and how it should look alike. But when it comes to introduce the designer I feel a little bit lost. I have no graphics talent so I try to pitch it with mockups and text. But I guess there are better ways or methods to get it on paper how would they look like? |
4 | Why do RPGs let you know how much XP you need to level up? I was reading this article called Behavioral Game Design, and it says ...how do we make players maintain a high, consistent rate of activity? ... the answer is a variable ratio schedule, one where each response has a chance of producing a reward. RPGs (I'm thinking of traditional JRPGs like Final Fantasy 1 6) don't do this when it comes to leveling up characters. You can always pause the game and look at how much XP you need to level up again. I haven't played WoW before, but I suspect it lets you know how much XP you need to level up, too. In WoW, there's plenty of examples of "variable ratio schedule" elsewhere in the game, so why not when it comes to XP you need to level up? I suspect most professional game designers know the lessons in this article. So why is it typical for the XP you need for the next level to be known? They could design the game so that it's random, where you never know how many enemies you need to kill for that next level. So why don't they use this as an opportunity to have a "variable ratio schedule"? |
4 | How to draw a charts by flash cs5 Hey all , I want to make something more interesting in my game some thing like a charts Analysis for a flash game. When THE PLAYER FINISH THE GAME . The score appears in charts . I want to integrate it with actionscript3 . NOTE The game is 60 seconds only I want to draw the score of the user in Y axis And the Time in X axis . I read before about highcharts, but i didn't get much information if there are something easier I'll be grateful . something like that |
4 | Things that make a game more interesting for kids What makes a game more interesting or fun to play for children ages 8 to 14 ? Does the age of the consumer play an important role in his her interest in the game? What can I put in a game to make it more fun, educational, and interesting to play? |
4 | How to design AI to understand its selling decisions? I am programming a game where there are 4 competitors (players) who have finished goods that they can then sell to given markets for which they have (at most a single) contracts for. Any finished goods is for a given market. Turn order is important in the game as this will decide who sells first. Scenario. Turn order Player A, C, D, B The problem I'm having is I have no idea how to make the AI players aware of the following factors they seem to need to know a lot of things which may impact on where to sell first. For example, AI needs to know. Am I the only person who can sell to a given market? If so, that's fine sell all goods to market. If not, do the following Who are my competitors for a given market and will I be able to sell first? If I sell in Market A, will I still get a chance to sell to Market B when turn order returns to me? (demand for items goes down for every sale and can bottom out) Indeed, this is one strategy I'm wanting to employ sell to a given market because i he does not he might not get a chance to sell again when turn order returns to them. If I sell, should the AI go for most revenue per selling round. Currently I am looking to order all markets for a given player based upon selling ability (who can sell first) Basically an array of people who can sell for a given market based on player order. These people then sell, and we reduce the array by one and repeat the process. Whilst this solves some problems, it does not solve the bigger problem, which is the AI will just end up selling stuff in the order that of the Markets array and not specifically to the ones where it is either advatangeous to do so, or will generate them the most money. I am wondering, how do you design an AI to make coheriant, logical decisions about what when and why they would sell to a given market? Sorry for the wall of text. Many thanks |
4 | More realistic currency for spaceship battle game This is slightly related to real development but as you know hardest thing to do for developer is naming things. So now I can't figure out what specific currency to use in my spaceship battle game. Little about game Space, universe, spaceships, battles. Ships can be destroyed, damaged, repaired, aliens (multi race) typical spaceship game. Multiplayer, turn based, battles not limited to 1 vs 1 can be different count in both teams (70 vs 45). Struggle is I want more realistic currency than just credits, gold, crystals etc. Because game currency should be related to battles, repair etc. And maybe (but not mandatory for now) with context to other alien races. All options is viewed from game character perspective not player. Requirements Something to get after battle (imagine destroyed ship, what to salvage) Used to repair ship (can be as part of some kind of tool) Valuable stuff to give someone in distinct part of universe Space pirates would want to have this stuff 1. Credits (EVE, Elite Dangerous) Fictional. No context to game universe at all. 2. Crystals or other minerals (majority of games?) Game related, fictional value. This works but if we think in scope of Universe as whole for some aliens this mineral could be worth nothing. 3. Scrap metal (FTL) Game related , real value. Best option for now is scrap, scrap metal as you know "FTL" game is using. This works only if we assume all ships in all universe using metal for building spaceships. It can be used as repair material, it can be found after battle even if ship is empty. Kinda feel bad to steal this currency from FTL as I love that game ) 4. exotic currencies Using these would be interesting but need time Works great with repairing stuff information Great currency to salvage after battle from another ship, but fails to for repairing ship. more? Summary I know there is quite obvious answer but wanted to reach to others and maybe hear something I never though of. Maybe you can write your pros and cons about every currency i mentioned or point out something where to look? |
4 | Multiple image objects extracted from spritesheets or one two object for all? Let's say I want to make a 2D game and I'll use a spritesheet containing all of the animation frames and a texture atlas for static sprites such as walls, non animated decorations...etc. Should I create separate image objects for all the static sprites and for all animation rows or should I just pass the on texture atlas (or on spritesheet) coordinates for them? Which solution, or "direction" is considered elegant in game development? Thanks for the help! ) Some pseudocode Separate image objects Class StaticSprite Image texture ... public Image getImage() ... public static final CheckedWall cw new CheckedWall( checked wall grid extracted from the texture atlas ) public static final WoodWall ww new WoodWall( wood wall grid extracted from the texture... Or class StaticSprite int texX, texY, size ... public Image getImage() gives the part of the spritesheet public static final WoodWall ww new WoodWall( coordinates for the texture atlas ) Assuming that the spritesheet is accessible for all these sprite related classes. |
4 | What's an acceptable delay between a player's action and the effects of the action being visible? So, I'm creating a game where all the systems push events onto the event queue. Those events are then dispatched at the start of the next frame. This works fine, but there are some situations where the delay between a player's action and the effects of the actions can be upto 3 frames. 3 frames for a 60fps is around 50ms. Is this kind of "lag" noticeable to a player? |
4 | Engaging ways to include party members in a fast paced action RPG Imagine a dynamic action RPG, where you constantly need to use your reflex to avoid bullets and fight against hordes of enemies. What would be a best way to incorporate other team members? I can think of several ways but all have disadvantages Giving them orders manually is out of questions when there's so much going around that you need all your attention just to make sure your main is not hit by any incoming attack Using a dynamic pause like in classic cRPG such as Baldur's Gate makes the game slower and interrupts action that ideally should be quick, dynamic and engaging Making them autonomous is difficult to balance. If they're too weak or ineffective, then the player will constantly gets annoyed at them, that they can't get anything right and die constantly. If they are too efficient then they can ruin the game because player could just sit back and watch them defeat all the enemies. If they just pretend to engage the enemy to left the action to the player this can happen Most action RPGs seem aware of these difficulties and prefer to have a single character for the player to run and control. This simplify things greatly but I don't want to lose the party, for plot related purposes, banters, interactions etc. What would be a good way to have the best of both words? How can I best include side characters in a fast and dynamic gameplay? |
4 | Unusual leveling up mechanism? About player leveling up, most (or maybe all..?) RPG games are like this Kill enemies (for experience points) Level up (for more attack power) Repeat It's fun in the low levels, but later, it gets dull and boring the game becomes more like increase your numbers to see more numbers. I'm making an RPG game. I'm thinking of giving the player mini quest(s) for each level to level up. For example, to reach level 2, player must fulfill the following Gain 10 EXP points. Find an Ancient Jar. Kill a Blue Wolf with a single attack. So my question is Are there games that have done this (I haven't seen heard of any)? Is it good or bad idea? Even if there are games that have done this technique, why most (or all) RPG games are going with the kill levelup repeat process? |
4 | Programming the combat sequence in a role playing game I'm trying to write a short "game" where a player goes around and fights monsters but I have no idea how to handle the combat. For example, say I have a "Warrior" and a "Troll". How do the two fight each other? I know I can do something like Conan Warrior.new() CaveTroll Troll.new() Conan.attack(CaveTroll) CaveTroll.attack(Conan) But what part of the game controls the monster? Do I just stick the above sequence in a loop until one of them dies? Or does the game "engine" need to have a part that deals specifically with combat? Or is this an aspect of the Troll's artificial intelligence that needs to take care of it's actions? Also, who what determines the actions that the monster takes? Maybe a Troll can bash, kick, bite, cast spells, drink potions, use a magical item. Does the game engine determine what action the Troll takes or is that something the Troll class manages? Sorry I can't be more specific but I need some guidance on which direction to go with this. |
4 | How to design simple turn based combat system with multiple difficulties? I am developing a small, turn based game with spaceships. The user controlled spaceship has two modes, let's call them offense and defense mode. The user can freely switch between modes. There are three types of enemy ships. Whenever the user's ship meets one or more enemy ships, a fight calculation should take place, which can have exactly two outcomes either the user's ship wins (and does not carry away any damage), or the game is over. Encounters are kinda, but not completely random so one can expect a certain enemy and change the mode accordingly. For reference, multiple enemy encouters at once might happen, and as a rough idea, the userShip usually is expected to lose if it has to fight 2 5 enemies. Like 2 are too much, if the active fight mode is disadvantageous, whereas the userShip can win against up to four ships, if the mode is advantageous. For encounters with multiple enemy types, the numbers shall be somewhere in between. My requirements for the combat system are completely deterministic one mode must not be clearly superior to the other mode. Ideally, one mode is advantageous against a certain enemy type, while the other mode is advantageous against another enemy type (not sure what to do about the third enemy type though) must be somehow scaleable, i.e. there should be three difficulty settings which shall be taken into account. ships have three attributes Attack, Defense, Speed (however, this isn't set in stone and could be changed at will) My best idea so far assign each ship type base stats (Attack Defense Speed, floating point numbers) userShip (10 10 10) enemy 1 (5 10 15) enemy 2 (15 5 10) enemy 3 (10 15 5) create a modifier table that multiplicates the userShip baseStats with a multiplicator depending on a) userShip mode and b) enemyShip type. have the combat system compare each of the three stats (if multiple enemies involved, their combined strength), and depending on the difficulty setting, the userShip wins if the difference of at least 2 of the 3 attributes is smaller than . That way, I would have the scalability. However... I was unable to design the modifier table in a way that the modifiers actually make a noticeable difference AND the user has an incentive to switch between modes when he expects a certain enemy in the next turn. The biggest problem is the nature of the binary combat outcome. This makes it that the floating point multiplicators neglegible most of the time. Also, I feel like I have way too many parameters (fight mode, attack, defense, speed, difficulty setting, modifier) for such a simple calculation, but I cannot really remove any other than the modifier, and they all should be at least a little bit relevant for the combat outcome. Also, I'm not sure how to deal with the third ship type, as there only are two modes. If the mode does not matter at all, that's poor design I think. I could add a third mode for the userShip, however that would introduce even more parameters for the combat. Unsure about that. Any ideas how to design a combat system under these conditions? |
4 | What does it mean to develop a VR game from the ground up? Some virtual reality games are advertised as being created from the ground up for virtual reality. What does this mean exactly? What are some of the differences between developing a 3d pc game and a vr game? |
4 | Should developers make their games easier with new versions? It seems that the game Angry Birds is becoming gradually easier with new versions. Maybe so people get the illusion of progress and satisfaction of breaking new records? I would like to know if gradual small modifications of games to enhance the sense of improvement and learning by users is known common standard practice in game developing. (I don't mean to say that there is anything wrong with such a practice.) |
4 | Implementing Power Ups in a game I'm making an Arkanoid or Brick Breaker game, but I got confused when I wanted to implement power ups. The idea is that when you destroy a brick, a powerup block falls down, and if you catch it you'll get the powerup. for example Wider Paddle (change dimensions of the quad) Change ball speed (variable) Ball goes through blocks (no reflection on hittest) Shoot lasers from the paddle (change in input handling) Now I pretty much know how to affect the code to achieve these effects, however not in a clean, flexible way. I have my ie my ball and paddle hard coded in java (GameObjects), and my Levels BlockTypes in xml. One terrible way to do it is to have like a flag telling which powerup is active, and by that alter the code with loads of if statements. Could anyone help me with how this is done? |
4 | Semi procedural mission generation I want to generate missions out of more or less predefined smaller chunks. Example mission structure Mission type Rescue Travel through forest Gather intel Choice Sneak into castle (if it fails, switch to fight) Fight your way into castle Use clever disguise (if entry method available for castle and it was discovered in 2) Rescue princess The travel block is generic and could be applied to a number of different landscapes, giving different random encounters or events. Same goes for other types of blocks, the castle could be replaced with another building location, the princess could be someone else etc. As the example hints I want to do some more advanced things than just randomly link up a few mission chunks Show expected mission layout to the player before accepting it Have optional blocks or choice between different blocks Change mission layout during the mission "the princess is in another castle" add one more travel block and one enter rescue block Be able to increase variety later by adding additional objects like more location types Be able to inject special story blocks into the dynamic missions that will always happen eventually Part of the strategy element in the game is choosing which missions you accept so a lot of them will be discarded and there must be enough variation to make this choice meaningful. You might be badly equipped for forest encounters, but well equipped for sneaking into castles. And rescuing a princess is high reward so the mission could be worth taking this is the kind of decision I want the player to make. I could probably just code this together in a way that works for now, randomizing a mission type, starting with the end block and work backwards from there to the start block. There will be some dependencies, like available location types depending on terrain type or available block types depending on the overall mission type. This seems like the hard part, figuring out what needs to depend on what and where to start from. Other dependencies that come into play are Some missions types not becoming available until later in the story, easy to handle Overworld location does not have much effect on the abstract "map" generated by a mission, except that some terrain types will be more common depending on where you are Player may have access to various means of transport that will impact mainly the travel blocks Factions exist and are somewhat tied to terrain, like elves in forest If game world has a war between two faction I may want to spawn more combat missions against one or both of them depending on player allegiance So do I generate elven enemies because I generated forest terrain first or do I change around my mission generation logic to look at target factions before terrain? (just an example of the kind of compromise I need to deal with). Another model I considered but is not very keen on is having predefined fixed templates of missions to fill with blocks of appropriate types. I feel this could have me doing too much work the RNG could do for me instead and I might also have to consider template to mission type relationships. My question is basically Is there a strategy that would help me achieve this kind of mission generation in a relatively clean and maintainable way? A similar situation from your game that you can share lessons learned from? Maybe there is not a perfect solution, but there are likely more or less good ways the problem can be approached in. Game is a turn based RPG strategy game with OO design, but I don't think the details have a major impact for the concept I ask about. My object relationships are not set in stone yet. I think the dynamic mission generation is a key factor in the game and if I find a good way to deal with that I may very well adapt other parts to work well with that model. |
4 | Game numbers and meaning Each game has it's own "maximum number". One question that comes into mind every time I play a(nother) game is how are these maximums determined and how do these affect gameplay? To explain, here's some rough references from games and anime. Numbers on Levels One instance is the "level cap". In some games, it's 100 which I can easily understand to be like percentage. But other games have weird level caps. I remember Fallout (3?) having a level cap of 30. The anime Log Horizon has a level cap of 90 (and increased to 100 after "the apocalypse"). Ragnarok Online once had 99, then increased (to 120?) for Renewal servers. Numbers on Attributes Another instance is attributes (Strength, Agility, Intelligence etc.). Ragnarok Online starts you at 5 a piece and level up in small increments. Skyrim starts you at 15 25 depending on race. In the anime Sword Art Online, they have this scale of 1000. Numbers on Damage Then there's attack power. In Yu Gi Oh card game, the attack power comes in the thousands. MTG on the other hand is as small as 0 10, with the 1 6 range as very common numbers. DotA damage starts lt 100 and reach as high as 2000 on critical strikes. Exceeding caps Then there's this Skyrim mod that makes you level up in excess of the cap. Why would they make something like that? Is there something beyond the level cap that the regular game doesn't address? Is the system not enough? In summary, here's my questions How are these scales and maximums determined? Is there some magical formula or a generic guideline (like from a game)? How does these number affect overall gameplay? I mean I can have a 100 scale that does the same thing as 1000 scale or 10000 scale. But why do they opt for these numbers? Why go for smaller ones or the insanely huge ones? Why is there a level cap? And what does it mean when the level cap is broken or increased? |
4 | What are "socialist core values" or "Chinese Government Approved" for games to run in China? Noticed this recently on the Street of Rogue changelog Alpha 37 Even More Downtown Work Internal Did a bunch of work on a Chinese Government Approved Chinese version of the game Now news outlets are reporting PUBG will change for China and align with socialist core values But, in a statement from Tencent translated by Reuters, the gaming giant says that it will go a step further and alter Battlegrounds to better align with socialist core values, Chinese traditional culture and moral rules. While also mentioning It s not entirely clear what that means. and Reuters points out that Tencent s competitor NetEase has accomplished something similar by adding actual government propaganda to the game, adding red banners into its battleground ... with slogans such as safeguard national security, safeguard world peace. Steam user ytivarg asked Streets of Rogue developer Madguy ytivarg 3 Nov 4 38am So what did you have to do to make it quot Chineese Government Approved quot ? to which he replied Madguy developer 3 Nov 5 16am ytivarg I'm a little wary of getting into specifics, but it's basically some text and art that might be seen as objectionable. You can draw your own conclusions (or sift through the localization folder) So what exactly does it take to make a game quot Chinese Government Approved quot or sticking to quot socialist core values quot ? |
4 | How many achievements should I include, and of what challenge? I know this question is fairy broad and subjective, but I'm wondering if there's been any published research into what an optimal number of achievements is and what kind of challenge they should present. The game this question directly relates to is a shoot em up, but an ideal answer is fairly theoretical. If there are too few achievements, or they are not challenging, I would expect they would fail in their goal to keep people playing. If there are too many, or they are unreasonably difficult, I would expect people to quickly give up. I personally witnessed the latter happening in Starcraft 2 a section of the achievements would have you win hundreds of games against their AI opponents (boring!) |
4 | How could I give a lifespan to my MMO characters? A problem I've encountered in some MMO games, is that players congregate around the endgame content, meaning that when a new player joins they are basically playing a solo game until they reach a high enough level to join the other players. To combat that, I'm considering giving the player characters a finite lifespan. For example making it so that after X hours of gameplay, or once they reach level X, they start losing power instead of gaining it. Then they are encouraged to reincarnate, starting again from level 1 and only carrying over some small subset of their abilities. My hope is that this will make the early game content (probably randomly generated, to keep it interesting) more useful, and more busy. My questions is How could I implement this to make it appealing to the players? |
4 | How to prevent players from using save load tactics in Roguelike games? Players can achieve the expected results through continuous saving and loading in rogue like games. I am try to reduce this method as much as possible, but don't want to keep players from trial and error at all, which makes the game more difficult. Anybody could give me some advice in this respect? |
4 | Procedural sidescroller world gen algorithm by seed I'm trying to recreate a procedural side scroller world gen algorithm by using a seed and I find my self stuck trying to solve a particular problem. Seed generation applies very well with voxel like games, but it seems slightly less suitable to generate randomly placed sprites with differing widths for sidescrollers Here's a picture explaining the problem Assuming I load the game at screen 2, I'd be e.g. between coordinates 100 and 0, and the seed function would tell me that between coordinates 100 and 0 there's the sprite of a big block of mountains to render, whose center lies in the coordinate interval 0, 100 ( the center of the sprite is the pink dot in the picture) assuming I'm loading the game from coordinate 300, as is the case in screen 1, a seed function wouldn't be able to recognize the presence of a mountain sprite there, even though part of it is still visible in the interval between e.g. 250, 350 A straightforward solution would be to sample from the seed function the interval including the biggest sized object in the game, which is of course highly inefficient given many objects only cover a fraction of the screen. How is this type of problem generally solved? Are algorithms based on seeds unsuitable for this particular project? If this is the case, what could be a reasonable alternative? |
4 | Why do old platformers typically scroll to the right? Lots of old platformers are only left to right ish and they don't allow you to move viewport left. I'm interested was it just a game design choice or it's due to some limitations back then. I have a lot of possible reasons in my head, but I'm interested in actual one, so please consider reply with citation. Not sure I'm in correct community with this question, sorry in advance. |
4 | Sprites Are there any tools to scale sprites individually without using Photoshop GIMP? I am using TexturePacker as tool to pack my 2D sprites, it is good but it doesn't provide the possibility to scale individual sprites to a specific scale. I am wondering whether there is any good tool or command line to scale the files in the original folder without having to use TexturePacker. What I am trying to do is to fix some scaling errors that the illustrator that produced the files did without having to re scale fix things using Photoshop that is more time expensive. |
4 | How do I fairly distribute new powerful cards to players in a collectible card game? I'm writing a game in which users start with a few cards. They use those cards to play against other players. The winner can steal a card from the other player. The aim is to get more different rare higher powered cards. If everyone starts with 10 low powered cards, how would anyone ever get higher powered cards? They'd just be playing against people who have the same type of cards as them. How do you fairly distribute these more powerful cards among players? |
4 | Time based movement Vs Frame rate based movement? I'm new to Game programmming and SDL, and I have been following Lazyfoo's SDL tutorials. My question is related to time based motion and frame rate based motion, basically which is better or appropriate depending on situations?. Could you give me an example where each of these methods are used?. Another question I have is that, in lazyfoo's two Motion tutorials (FPS based and time based) The time based method showed a much smoother animation while the Frame rate based one was a little hiccupy, meaning you could clearly see the gap between the previous location of the dot and its current position when you compare the two programs. As beginner which method should I stick to?(all I want is smooth animations). |
4 | Multiplayer card game using PHP Ajax and mysql I am designing a map game, using PHP and MYSQL. I don't know how to make the players who sign in to the website to see other players who are also connected to the site and be able to chat with one another. I want to design the game in such a way that 2 players can play with each other and be able to send messages during the game while others groups are playing at the same time. I have designed the map game successfully, but the problem is making the player 1 who log in to site to see the player 2 who will also log in and both can get connected to play each other. http i.stack.imgur.com YyCPG.png I will appreciate your responses. |
4 | What are "affordances" in game design? I keep hearing the word "affordance" in terms of game design, most recently in the movie Indie Game Life After. I also vaguely remember it from a UX class in undergrad. But I have no idea what it means. What is an affordance in the context of game design? |
4 | Tiled game how to correct load background image? i'm a newbie. I'm trying to develop a 2d game (top down view). I would like to load a standard background, a textured ground... My "world" is big, for example 3000px X 3000px. I think it is not a good idea to load a 3000px x 3000px image and move it... So, how is the best practice ? To load a single small image (64x64) and repeat it for N times ? If yes, ok, but how i can manage the "background" movement ? Thanks Bye! |
4 | Game planning and software design? I feel that UML is not convenient In my university, they always emphasize and hype about UML design and stuff, in which I feel it is not going to work well with game structure design. Now, I just want a professional advice on how should I begin my game designing? The story is I have some skill in programming and have done many minor game such as getting some 2D platformer working to some extend. The problems that I find about my program is the poor quality design. After coding for a while, things start to break down due to poor planning (When I add new feature, it tends to make me have to recode the whole program). However, to plan everything out without a single design flaw is a bit too ideal. Therefore, any advice to how should I plan my game? How should I put it into visible pictures, so that me and my friends are able to overview the designs? I planned to start coding a game with my friend. This is going to be my first teamwork, so any professional advices would be a pleasure. Is there any other alternatives than UML? Another question is how does "prototyping" normally looks like? |
4 | Collision with User Input and Object I am curious on how to handle collision detection involving a moving target and user input. Basing myself in the mobile space, I get events from a set framework, but I do wonder about the amount of lag involved. Say the object moves faster and faster, then position of the input and the object is very important. What I want to know is what is the best design for handling user input and then also the best way to make sure to accurately work out when the input point collides with the object, keeping threads in mind? |
4 | How can I design lots of different attack types that can be combined? I'm making a top down 2D game and I want to have a lot of different attack types. I'd like to make the attacks very flexible and combine able the way The Binding of Isaac works. Here's a list of all the collectibles in the game. To find a good example, lets look at the Spoon Bender item. Spoon Bender gives Isaac the ability to shoot homing tears. If you look at the "synergies" section, you'll see it can be combined with other collectibles for interesting yet intuitive effects. For example, if it combines with The Inner Eye, it "Will enable Isaac to fire multiple homing shots at once". This makes sense, because The Inner Eye Gives Isaac a triple shot What's a good architecture to design things like this? Here's a brute force solution if not spoon bender and not the inner eye then ... if spoon bender and not the inner eye then ... if not spoon bender and the inner eye then ... if spoon bender and the inner eye then ... But that will get out of hand very fast. What's a better way to design a system like this? |
4 | How to deal with "Scrooge McDucks" in my fixed currency amount game? I'm currently working on a very small scale MMO game planned to support approximately hundred players per server, but we're having trouble with our economical model. For various reasons we have decided to go with a fixed currency amount system meaning that there is only a certain amount of "gold" that can ever exist in the game at the same time. In this early play testing version (9 players) that amount is 9000 gold but we are planing to have around 1 million gold per server (100 players). A brief example how this system works At a certain point in time this is how the gold amounts may look in the game. Max Gold Bank Shopkeeper Player A Player B 100 90 0 5 5 Player A sells 2 gold worth of loot to the Shopkeeper. The Shopkeeper has 0 gold and so he "borrows" 2 gold from the bank (only NPCs can). Player A sells 3 gold worth of loot to Player B. Player B pays from their wallet. Player A buys a sword for 5 gold from the Shopkeeper. Player A pays from their wallet. Now we have Max Gold Bank Shopkeeper Player A Player B 100 88 5 5 2 Repeat the above loot and sell step a few times and you may end up here Max Gold Bank Shopkeeper Player A Player B 100 0 27 59 14 Player A tries to sell a 30 gold item to the shopkeeper, but cannot because the Shopkeeper only has 27 gold and cannot borrow from the (now empty) bank. Player A have to lower their selling price, trade wares in return, or wait until the Shopkeeper gains money in other ways. This system is working fine for the most part. Recently one of our testers did something that completely broke our system they sold, traded, and haggled their way into owning about 60 of the total currency amount available in the game then refused to use it (becoming the RPG equivalent of Scrooge McDuck). This caused a big problem because suddenly approximately 5500 gold out of our 9000 total was unusable. Of course in the release of the game one player owning 60 of all money is unlikely, but 60 players each owning 1 of all money can cause the same effect. We have considered deleting old characters and returning their money to the "bank" but decided against it since if a player comes back and his character is deleted I would imagine they would be quite sad (especially if it was super rich!). So on to the actual question how can we avoid this happening and how can we limit the damages caused by this? |
4 | Is a responsive dimension game worth it? I'm in the process of creating a Wario Ware like game that will be created for browsers first then likely ported to mobile. Here are the different ways I've considered setting up the dimensions of the game Fixed width The natural go to, set width and height Pros Easy to manage interaction in javascript Don't have to worry about resizing As a developer I know exactly how it will look and play Cons It might not be playable on all platforms It will almost always not make the best use of all of the space on the screen Several fixed widths I'm currently leaning towards this approach Pros It can reach more platforms than having just one fixed width can The developer(s) still have full knowledge of how the end product will look through testing on each size It is fairly easy to change the javascript to match the varying set dimensions Cons It doesn't take up the full screen space on many screens Have to develop javascript in a way where it works with several sizes Semi Responsive Consistent dimension ratio, varying actual size. In my case It'd be landscape layout Pros It makes good use of more of the screen The fixed ratio makes developing easier than a non fixed ratio Cons On certain platforms it may not be playable depending on the dimensions of the game and of the device Interaction is harder to manage in javascript than set dimensions Fully Responsive I'd force landscape mode if possible and keep a minimum height and width, but other than that it's fully responsive Pros Makes use of the full screen Able to be played on any device Cons A bit harder to manage interaction in javascript My questions What approach is commonly taken when it comes to making dimensions of browser based games? Is there another approach or mix of approaches that I didn't mention that would be useful? It seems that making it fully responsive would be best, but it'd be the most work I'm also looking for any other advice on the subject Sorry if this is too broad for this community or if it is tagged inappropriately, feel free to edit as necessary |
4 | How to design AI Manager I am currently building a AI system for a game. I am familiar with State design pattern and implemented different states for each agent in my game. Different states are like Running, Attack, Idle, Cover, Support etc. In this game, I have around 10 agents which have mainly two behaviours Defender and Attacker. I made a class AIManager which have reference of all agents in the game. This class decides which agent will do what but I am facing issues in managing this class. There are many rules in the game like There will be two teams. Each team will have 2 defender and 3 attackers. Attacker will attack attackers and defenders. Defender only attack to defenders. At a time only two agents can attack a single agent. If defender is in cover, it will not go to support state. If defender is attacking, it will not go to run state. If attacker is attacking, it can run away on specific condition. ... etc To make these rules applicable, my AIManager class is totally mess, contains lots of if else, need to check every possibilities, for loops. I am sure I am not doing right in implementing these game logic because when I need to change some rules or need to add another state, I need to go through all my game logic. This manager code is totally unstable. I want to know how to tackle this situation, Is there any design pattern which I should follow or any suggestion would be of great help. |
4 | How to prevent unbalanced population in MMO game factions? In games such as World of Warcraft, the imbalance between factions is often a matter of controversy. To compensate, WoW applied the Tenacity buff to the outnumbered faction to balance PvP. However, this only applies to PvP and I wonder if this kind of bonus can be used to encourage character creation in the least populated faction. Something like an XP bonus for the least populated faction? For example, 5 XP bonus if the faction represents 45 of the server. The bonus would be highlighted when creating a character and it would be 0 when the two factions have the same size. Or a bonus on the economy by lowering auction fees proportionately to the imbalance? |
4 | (RPGs) Drop table design I guess this question pertains more to games like MMO and Diablo like games. What are the usual designs for implementing a drop table, where a monster could drop different type of items depending on a percentage? I guess the simplest way there is to have a dictionary of 'percentage weightage' to item types, but this is hard to extend if we wish to introduce new item types (for example, when D2 expansion includes runes and new class items) |
4 | how to choose the board design in a multiplayer game? I'm making a Nine Men's Morris board game in which players can play with other online players. But my problem is in steps before starting the game between two players. This is what I thought about 1 Player B requests to play with Player A 2 If player A accept the request, the game will start. I need a step in between, so that they can choose a board design, but I don't know who should choose it or how. Is there any better way in maching two players or how to select a borad map? Any ideas is much appreciated. |
4 | Looking for a market price algorithm for a turn based game I am new at game development and am now facing the problem for a market price algorithm in a turn based game. What I try to achieve the market starts with fixed bidding and asking prices for one piece of goods. To keep it simple the minimum value is 1, the maximum 20 if the user buys sells the same goods in too large quantities in a certain amount of turns, the prices should rise drop simple supply and demand logic. The maximum amount of a goods per transaction is 100 if the user doesn't trade that good for a few turns, it should adjust the price in the other direction there are certain type of goods that can be quot easily quot produced by the player and are thus sold and some that are harder to get by and are usually bought. the market can sell each good infinitely and would also buy everything, so it has no stock to take into account. What I tried and didn't work if the accumulated quantity of bought sold good reaches 500 (I use negative values for buying) the price rises or drops by 1 respectively to factor the turns into it, I thought I just reduce the accumulated value by 10 each turn and then adjust the price if it reaches 0 again. This has one big flaw, as you can easily cheat by just selling a small amount, wait a few turns and the price will rise repeat until the price reaches the maximum of 20. Any simple ideas on how to fix this? ps. I hope this is an appropriate question to ask here |
4 | How do i make turn based combat with 10 players work? I am currently developing a game with a turn based combat as focus. The games battles will need to be able to handle 1 to 20 players (Multiplayer). Each unit (Player and AI) each has an initiative (higher initiative the higher in order you are) I am now in the stage where i will start writing the game mechanics for the turn based combat and i believe the classic turn based (individual turns) will take too long especially if someone is AFK or just slow. My initial idea was to add a timer based on the number of players min capping at 10 seconds, but i don't want to stress out my players. My other idea is to allow every player and AI select their actions at the same time with a higher timer at 1 minute. When all the players has selected or the time has run out the initiative order are run for each unit with their action. I am aiming for the second one but i want to know if this is the best way to take. It will add an other dimension of strategy since each player will have to calculate what the opponent will do so they cant take action for what they have done. Do anyone know an other way to do this? What would you chose and why? |
4 | Main characteristics of a game I was doing some reading for college and I searched for "Main characteristics of games" "Main characteristics of video games" and other similar ones, the result were a bunch of psychological studies and some non totally related links. The bottom line there was no real definition. I can see why, however I m suprised there are no attempts I m going to think I m looking for the wrong thing, so can you help? My purpose is to try to understand what is a video game and what isnt. ie bad games are still games, so fun and immersion are not characteristics of a game ( before I started thinking about this I thought that was the case) Cheers |
4 | Design constraints for games that the elderly (65 ) get engaged with I'm a newbie in game design and gaming in general (Tetris, board games, this sort of things). But have observed that the elderly got very much engaged with bubble shooter and solitaires (quite different approaches). I've tried to look for something similar, and have tried to initiate some in these games, but nope, the shooter is always preferred. Does anybody know of general criteria, design constraints, or (even better) concrete examples of games that the elderly like to play, apart from these two? Note agreed, not correctly tagged, but can't find something that fit, nor can I propose new ones. |
4 | Matching game difficulty I'm currently making a matching game where the player is given a color or image type and the player has to click on all of the matching colors of images as fast as possible. My problem is how would I go about making a difficulty curve instead of just randomly generating what the next situation will be. There's a link down below to show the first version of the game I made a while ago. As you can see the new scenario is chosen randomly and one scenario can be harder than the other with no thought of progression. What I want this time is for the game to progress over time. So, the more of these "scenarios" a player does the more difficult it will get. https www.youtube.com watch?v sa2mtpv7RzA |
4 | (RPGs) Drop table design I guess this question pertains more to games like MMO and Diablo like games. What are the usual designs for implementing a drop table, where a monster could drop different type of items depending on a percentage? I guess the simplest way there is to have a dictionary of 'percentage weightage' to item types, but this is hard to extend if we wish to introduce new item types (for example, when D2 expansion includes runes and new class items) |
4 | What is the technology behind screen sharing? Came across an app called Draw N Guess(iTunes link) and the app uses screen sharing, i.e what a player draws is visible to others. I'm wondering how they are doing it in real time. I believe it is a cross platform app. I got curios to know what is the technology behind it! It must be very interesting to learn ) P.S. If this is not the site to ask plain question (i.e unrelated to programming), can you let me know where I can ask such questions? TIY! |
4 | What's it like being a game developer? I am a 6th grade student and I would like to be a video game designer. In class, we all had to choose a career that we would like to have and interview someone with that career. Finding a game designer locally has been difficult, so I thought I would try online. If some of you would take the time to answer these questions I would be grateful. Some of the questions I have for you are Why did you choose your career? What kind of education did you have to complete for this career? How is math related in this career? What would a day in your normal life in this career typically look like? How do you dress for this career? What is your favorite part about this career? What kind of games do you create? You do not have to answer all of the questions but it would be much appreciated if you would answer most of them. Thanks! |
4 | How to "hide" an adventure game in an RPG I have a shakey idea for a game, and I need help fleshing out what mechanics could make this work. I want to make a game that, on the surface, is a fun little exploration dungeon crawler rpg lite sort of game. There's some story, a large map, and basic quests to go off to various dungeons and defeat all the monsters that are threatening the kingdom. The idea is that a player can play through, and defeat the game by just going and defeating the monsters everywhere, and that should be a rewarding enough way to play the game. However, I don't want that to be the only way to play the game. What if the monsters attacking the kingdom from a nearby "dungeon" are just misunderstood, or are being provoked? What if they could instead be made into allies? For each set of set of monsters threatening the kingdom, I want the player to either be able to just go and kill them all, or find some other solution, but for killing all the monsters to be the only obvious thing to do. The idea being that finding a different solution should feel very rewarding, or a suggestion that there are other solutions should come late in the game and provide motivation for the player to replay the game. My question is What sort of game mechanics could be used to provide an alternative way of progressing through the game while not making it obvious that the alternative exists? I think if a dialog tree open up with the first monster you met in each dungeon, it would telegraph the idea that there's an alternative solution. So how could there be a dungeon of monsters that you can wade into and immediately start fighting, while at the same time there being a non violent solution? |
4 | Story dialogues user controlled or script driven? I'm currently working on the animations that present the story. Right now my animations are scripted. They allow me to dictate the pace of the scene. My dialogue bubbles expire on a simple "time per char" system or scripted time where needed. I was wondering that maybe i should let the user control the flow with a click for each major frame. This gives him the time he needs to read and process the dialogue. But that breaks the flow. For example when i want to create agitation, dialogues are really fast, barely readable etc.. Important stuff on the other hand is slow. So my question is, what would your approach and why? Generally speaking. What do users prefer in these cases? Platform is phones, scenes are presented in the same env as game engine, with characters only walking and talking. |
4 | Designing mouse aimed aircraft controls I am attempting to design mouse aimed turning to control an aircraft in a 3D environment. To cut it short, you aim where you want to go, and the aircraft turns to face that direction (similar to War Thunder). When turning an aircraft, it makes sense to use your elevator instead of your rudder (especially in long turns). If you need to turn 90 degrees left, it makes sense to roll 90 degrees left first, then use the elevator to turn, finally leveling out the aircraft once the target heading is reached. Now, I want the user to be able to control the roll, but I also want the game to do it automatically when the player is not controlling it. My problem is conceptualizing what operations I need to do to get the target roll angle. I managed to figure out that to align myself correctly, I need to align the plane that bisects the aircraft (the V plane) with the direction I want to move to (the D vector). The R angle is how much I would need to turn (in local angles) to achieve the derired orientation. So, if I the player looks at the blue circle, the plane will roll right and hold that roll until it's almost aligned with the desired direction. At that point, it will unroll and level out. Just figuring out the roll I need would be a big help. Preferably I'd like to get it done with dot and cross products, as these operations are already established and I have easy access to the up, right and forward vectors of the plane, as well as the direction vector. |
4 | Constructing a game stock market Short Question How do I calculate market values for different resources in the game? Long Question I am building a game around the concept of resource gathering and manufacturing to gain different resources. Those resources can be traded with other players or with a "game market", meaning auto generated trades that get created on a certain time interval (undecided on the interval yet). Because it would be too complex to create different exchange rates for each pair of resources (there are currently just under 100 types of resources and plans for a few hundred in total), I have come to the conclusion that there needs to be a "game currency" (lets just call it GC for now). Each resource would have its exchange rate to GC and this exchange rate would, on a certain interval, be impacted based on what is going on in the game. How would I calculate this exchange rate or market value of a certain resource every interval? I assume different things would effect it like popularity of trading within previous interval, previous exchange rate, abundance of resource currently, etc etc. But I am not sure how to apply this methodically. Update Some of my concerns are around the value of a resource Some resources can be mined directly from the environment. Other can only be obtained from manufacturing the mined resources. Other resources may be manufactured for other manufactured resources. How do I create a stable starting point to account for these factors? Obviously manufactured resources would be worth more because they are more time consuming to create. Should players be forced to observe the market value or place their trade requests at what ever value they desire? If the value is forced, what happens to trades after a market value changes? If the is opened ended, what stops players from gaming the market to boost or fall prices? Should I only calculate the value based on successful trades and consider that open request haven't been filled for a reason? How do I calculate what will happen in a large multiplayer situation when the game is only in development and I only have myself and a few AI players trading? The market values could be effected differently in different situations and I don't want to be caught in a situation where I have to change game mechanics after a game in live which could potentially upset players who have figured out the predictability of the market and over night, the rules change. |
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