AI to help player by suggesting upgrades Suppose I'm creating a racing game.. I would like to implement an awareness system AI, that will suggest to the player that he can buy that booster or some other upgrade, .. etc. How should I start implementing that? A FSM ? A decision tree ? Suppose that I have variables like, how many crashes, how much is the damage, how many gates I have passed, .. etc how would I use those variables then to say for example you need to buy that stuff?


Rule of thumb for enemy art design in 2D platformer I'm at the early stages of developing a 2D side scrolling open ended platformer (think Metroidvania) and am having a bit of difficulty at enemy design inspiration for something of a scifi, nature, fantasy setting that isn't overly familar or obvious. I haven't seen too many articles, blogs or books that talk about the subject at great length. Is there a fair rule of thumb when coming up with enemy art with respect to keeping your player engaged?


Appropriate database schema for heroes' skills in a Tower Defense game? In a Tower Defense game, each hero (or character) has some skills. Each skill has some quot chance of appearance quot (CoA for short) when attacking enemies and if appeared it has some quot hit accuracy quot (i.e. hit on enemies) (HA for short) and has effects on the enemies (if hit by the skill) (EoH for short). Examples Skill 1 Frost 1, CoA 50 , HA 100 , EoH (1) slow enemy down for 4s and (2) yield 200 damage points. Skill 2 Frost 2, CoA 100 , HA 50 , EoH (1) make enemy frozen for 8s. I first tried to breakdown skills into quot atomic quot effects and come up with tables as below All looks good? But now we want to update Skill 1 a bit to make it more complicated Skill 1 Frost 1, CoA 50 , HA 100 , EoH (1) slow enemy down by 40 for 4s and (2) yield 200 damage points. (Please pay attention to the 40 here!) Or even coming up with more complicated skills Skill 3 Frost 3, CoA 20 , HA 100 , EoH (1) frozen enemy for the first 4s then slow enemy down by 50 for next 4s and (2) yield 200 more damage points. Skill 4 Frost 4, CoA 10 , attack enemy 3 times continuously, each time HA 50 , EoH (1) frozen enemy for the first 2s then slow enemy down by 50 for next 2s and (2) yield 400 more damage points. Each effect now has more parameters to be specified which makes my current schema not fit anymore. Please help deal with this!


Guidance for building a proper in game economy I'm seriously thinking of building a space opera game which would share some of Machiavelli The Prince aspects regarding commerce each player will be able to extract build buy sell donate a wide range of products (from ore to spaceships roughly). However, I'm struggling with the economy aspect of it. Should the game define the prices once and for all? Should each player be able to determine his own buy sell prices, and if so, how? How can I avoid over engineering this game economy mechanism, while still making it attractive for users? Edit thanks to your very nice input, some more information about the setup it's a "player only game," with no "computer managed player." players start with a planet and some resources units and then (try to) expand players can be of multiple "species" with no proper relationship apart from the one they might make up no possible notion of "central bank" or similar in the first place consequently, I would prefer "not magic" on the economy, by that I mean a standard currency whose value would be determined by the system. However then I don't see how trading would be appealing, since bartering would be the only way, which feels a bit clumsy for the players. I was thinking of having some rare metal as the standard exchange medium, but then I wonder how would to include other basic economic attributes, such as the population's wealth... Hopefully it doesn't look too daunting...


Good ways to indicate enemy toughness Can you add any good ways to indicate enemy strength to this list physical size equipment quality narration or preview scene demeanour Background I'm designing a spell casting stealth game where some enemies are cannon fodder, others are decent fights, and some (initially) will be lethal hence the stealth requirement. It's a VR title so I don't want UI elements (like stars, health bars etc) messing up the immersion. At the moment my inclination is to avoid cartoony art style so it'll be as 'realistic' looking as I can manage while keeping 90fps.


Mini Game Platform for PC similar to Warcraft III Custom Games I think it would be fun to make a game for pc that has an online community like Warcraft III (the RTS, not the MMORPG), aka there's lobbies and chat rooms and users can host games to play with eachother. And there's no seriousness, just fun mini games that last on average 30 60 minutes, more or less depending on the game. I searched google but it's really hard to find anything. Is there anything similar to this idea that's already out there? Or is this a first? Also, in making this, any recommendations, flaming, or random comments? (yes I know it is hard to make an online game and such, especially since I have no experience with networking. I do have 2 3 years of programming experience, however). Some more info on what I want to create. I want it to be easy for users to create games and play with friends. All of us game creators have ideas, and we probably draw them out on paper (graph paper for me). Wouldn't it be amazing if it was a matter of a couple hours to transfer that idea to a fully working game, even if it is in 3d?


How to map changing stances (southpaw orthodox) to gamepad controls? I am developing a third person hack n slash style game which features a variety of melee and projectile weapons as well as unarmed combat. The player will be able to dual wield any combination of the above weapons eg. a sword and a pistol, or a knife and a bare fist. I'm trying to work out the gamepad controls based on the game mechanics, but I've come to a dilemma regarding the movesets. Originally I had the left and right triggers mapped as the left and right hand attacks. However, some of the attack moves that I have planned involve the player taking a step forward. Meaning they may have started in orthodox stance (left foot forward) but will end up in southpaw (right foot forward). For some weapons like firearms the stance makes no difference, since the attacks will be the same from either. But for some melee weapons and especially for unarmed combat this is a significant difference. For example, from orthodox stance the left trigger should logically do a jab attack from the front hand, while the right trigger should do a straight punch attack from the back hand. If the player now does a lunging attack in which they take a step forward, they end up with their other foot infront, meaning that now the left trigger cannot do a jab but must perform a straight punch since the left hand is no longer in front. So the question is how to resolve this without having a controls system that confuses the player. There are a few options I have considered after studying other games, but I am looking to see if a better alternatives exists. 1) Seen in Elder Scrolls, Dark Souls, Tekken Use 2 attack buttons but have the player always stay in a single stance. This way they the left and right limbs will always perform the same move. The downside of this is that attacks which would normally leave the player in another stance have to either be avoided or the animation has to include the player returning to their original stance. While this solves the problem it can look unrealistic. 2) Seen in DOA, VF Use only 1 attack button, instead of one for each limb. This will mean that the stance of the player is irrelevant since a single button will play the correct attack animation of either the left limb or right limb depending on the stance. While this is more realistic it makes it difficult to have dual wielding weapons with only one button controlling both. For example, consider if a pistol and sword are being dual wielded, the left trigger may swing the sword while the right trigger may fire the pistol but if both weapons are mapped to only the right trigger what attack should happen? The sword, the pistol, both? Here lies the problem. 3) Seen in MK Use 2 attack buttons which refer to the front or back limb, not the left or right limb. This method allows for the player to switch stances, since for example the left trigger may refer to the front hand irrespective of which stance the player is in. In a side scrolling game this may not be a problem, but in a third person game where the camera is behind the player, I am concerned that this type of controls will be confusing. Especially since the convention (correct me if I'm wrong) for dual wielding seems to be that the left and right triggers control the left and right weapons limbs. So are these the only options, or is there a better way of mapping the controls for this use case?


How to avoid players getting lost in and or bored by the meta game? Yesterday, I noticed something that I had never noticed consciously before, but which had "ruined" more or less all games that I have ever played The longer you play a game, the more you get lost in and bored by the meta game. What I mean is that the longer you play, the more you know the meta game. Once you know the meta game by heart, you basically stop playing the game and instead only play the meta game anymore. Here are a few examples from different genres to show what I mean DotA In the beginning, DotA is super fun, although you totally suck at it. You learn new heros, you are happy when you are able to buy an expensive item and so on. After being "pro" in DotA, you basically only play the meta game anymore You pick exactly the hero that can counter the enemy and play exactly a perfect meta game for your hero (e.g., go to jungle until you are fat, time creep spawns to stack, and so on). You know basically exactly at which time you will be able to buy which item and you execute this. You no longer play the game, you just play the meta game. You execute a well thought out choreography, which you perfected by executing it 100 or more times. Eventually this gets boring! Anno XXXX In the beginning, you build an island and have to master more and more challenges to keep you citizens happy. Cool! Once you know the meta game the whole game becomes a "Oh, I need these 10 resources in these proportions, then the people are happy. I build a fleet and capture the enemy or keep on playing until my island is full". Cities Skylines (or any Sim City) In the beginning, it is fun to master what your people need. In the end, you know exactly what they need, so it becomes more or less a burden E.g., for each new residential district, I need a police station, a fire station, garbage incineration plant, crematory, a hospital, I connect everything to the highway, add a subway station and add bus lines. Done. Lame. It starts feeling totally mechanic. I no longer feel like building a real city. I feel like building a mathematically simulation of a city and just responding to optimize all parameters for this simulation. Civilizations A super nice game to explore in the beginning! So many technologies, just wow! In the end I know exactly which technology to develop when. I have a more or less complete ordering among the technologies. I know where exactly to place the next city and which units to build. Heck, I think I could even write an AI that does more than 95 of the things I do, since everything has become so mechanic. I could go on forever. Almost all games have this. For some players, this is where the game gets really cool. Some players want to play the meta game! But for others, including me, it gets boring. I want to feel like playing a game, like exploring. Not optimizing a numerical simulation. So, when designing a game, how can you avoid that this will happen? Is it possible to hide the meta game to such an extent that the player no longer feels it, even when playing the game for long.


Realistically, how long would it take for 1 person to create a 2D isometric RPG? Something I have been looking into for a while is developing my own PC game. I'm very into CRPGs like Fallout 1 and 2, UnderRail, Wasteland 2, etc. I have long desired to create my own game like this, with an emphasis on plot. While I don't have any experience in development, I use several (mostly proprietary) programming languages in my job, and have a natural aptitude for learning syntax etc. I have taken a few tutorials in Unity and Godot but generally I prefer to feel my way through software myself (tutorials rarely give you enough 'why and how') or reverse engineer an existing product. I plan for the game to be quite minimal on the asset front, at least to begin with. I've done some basic 3d modelling and mapping (a long time ago, in Source engine I built my school!) My question is, if I decide to dedicate the time to this, how long does it generally take for one person to create a game like UnderRail or Darklands? I'd like to know if it's a doable project or a laughable pipe dream for an inexperienced one man enthusiast!


Revisitability of Game Elements In some games, when you miss a pickup, you can never get it again unless you restart the game, and those pickups count in your collection. (therefore, you must restart the game to finish the collection, if you made any mistakes). In Pok mon, you have only one Master Ball, limited supply of Ethers and legendary Pok mon appear once per game. Trading fixes all of those problems. For a more radical perfectionist, they demanded all dialogs, background music, and even items to be revisitable. Some games, like Naruto Ninja Council, satisfied all of those needs. Is it always a good practice to make things revisitable? Even cutscenes and music? When is it not a good practice to do so?


Game ideas for a platformer I have created a platformer which currently has the features listed below. I would greatly appreciate any further ideas which I could implement! (I don't play a lot of games which is why I require help) Walking jumping movement player can shoot lasers enemies also walk, fly, and shoot lasers water (you can swim in this) mud (slows you down on contact, and stops you from jumping) ladders damage when falling from a large height, unless falling into water moving platforms springboards (jumping on them shoot you into the air) growing platforms (allow you to reach new places) key and door system gem and coin collection system teleporting turrets


How to model an Attack( ) action? How to model combat? In general, how objects communicate? I never understood how would you elegantly describe two people talking in OO. I think this question extends to how similar objects communicate in general. I am designing a game now and Units have to attack each other. My first idea was something along the lines public class Unit public void attack(Unit targetUnit) calculates damage base on this unit stats targetUnit.takeDamage(damage) public void takeDamage(int damage) this.health health damage And then later Unit whiteKnight new Unit() Unit blackKnight new Unit() a possible combat interaction whiteKnight.attack(blackKnight) blackKnight.attack(whiteKnight) Is this acceptable? Is this the standard?


Bartle taxonomy formula Anyone knows the formula inside the Bartle Test of players taxonomy? I need to do the test, but I need the weight of each question to make something more accurate and trustworthy to the real test... Some links to the online test http matthewbarr.co.uk bartle http 4you2learn.com bartle


Where do you search look for game developers for an indie game startup? I just recently saw stackoverflow had a game dev sister site so here I am, wondering if you experienced fellows know where one can search look for game developers for an indie game startup? In other words I have a game idea which I've written down with as much detail as possible (so anyone else can understand how it works) and now I'm looking for a heavy php programmer with whom to pair up in order to go from idea to reality. I'm a front end interface designer and an intermediate programmer. I recognize my project requires heavy programming skills which I do not have as of today ) So, what websites, communities or places do you recommend I go look into? Where do good programmers interested in indie games go look for projects if they don't have their own? Thanks in advance G.Campos


How can one create "network effects" in a game as it scales? Is it possible to create network effects in a game? How? Usually a product with network effects present gets more valuable to a user as more people have the same product. Examples can be Skype or Facebook. The more people are using them, the more it's important to a single user. Does it even matter in games?


Designing RPG player classes, and the trend to avoid a Priest or Cleric RPG class From my experience, RPG classes ("hero" or "villain" types) are often divided into four categories 1. Mage 2. Priest 3. Rogue 4. Warrior However, there are quite a few popular RPGs that ignore the Priest or Cleric "base" character class entirely. Two game series of note The Elder Scrolls (Skyrim), and Dragon Age. Is there a specific reason why this is so? Perhaps the background story makes allowing players to be a Cleric difficult for example, if there is a large amount of NPCs in the game that have the adventure class of Cleric, and making that class available to players would be detrimental to the story of the game. I've pondered this quandary myself when working on developing my own video RPG should the character class options be sub categorized with the aforementioned base classes? Or perhaps even more difficult of a question to answer, should a video RPG include some kind of Deity system? The RPG approach to "gods" is difficult for me, particularly because I've have somewhat of a spiritual perspective on real life, I'm not sure how to reconcile my choices with game design to my choices regarding spirituality. Any helpful responses will be greatly appreciated!


How should I manage states in my game? I can't understand what design pattern I can take advantage to build an intro screen, help screen, level select screen, game screen, game over screen, altogether. I can make one in AS3, but the code becomes hugely messy. That's what I sort of do. I would create a different class for each one but all classes don't share nothing in common, I just separate the classes to short the code in each file. The only parameter I pass on is stage as reference for all of them so that I can place the sprites and assets on the screen. I instantiate the game itself in a separated file and when the player reset the level that class would be re instantiate or overwrite again. I run garbage collector in each class because there are some events I can't use reference. Only I understand what I do, but as you can see it's certainly the wrong way since it has became messy and hard to maintain. I learned by trial and error because I couldn't find examples showing how to code with OOP these layers or states(play, select, send score, play again and so on) of the game.


What category would this asynchronous production economy game fall under? I'm thinking of getting into game development and my friend and I have this idea for a game. We want to do some research on similar games, and I have noticed that games seem to fall under certain categories like "platformer", "shooter", "racing games" or similar. Our idea is a multiplayer, mobile game where you and around 4 5 other players are placed in a session. Every player is given a different role in a market (like a farmer to grow crops, miller to make flour out of crops, baker to bake bread, etc.). The players are supposed to sell goods to each other in order to earn money (or similar). The resources are produced generated over time, so it's like Travian and other city building games when it comes to stuff happening over time. You own a production facility (like a farm, mill, etc.) and if you have enough resources money it produces some good every 10 min (arbitrary time for the example). This happens even when the user is not playing. Then once in a while, you can check in, put some of your goods up for sale that others can purchase. So it's a passive loop that simply generates resources every x minutes, and in addition, the players can put up their goods for sale when they feel like it. But the game is not "infinite". When one of the players reaches a certain goal, the game session ends and the players are ranked (or something, it's still a rough idea). So in this regard, it's more like Wordfeud or Chess where your next move depends on what the other players do and there is a way to win the game (be it a winning condition or time running out). So the question is, does this kind of game fall under a specific category that we can research?


How do you decide on the size of a tech tree? Is there any established metric with which a game designer might decide the best size for a tech tree? In this case the game is a single player 4X game (thank you, Peter, for that term). I wanted to incorporate an appropriate length and breadth of tech tree as a basic design goal. For instance, is there data on player reactions to tree size vs game scope or game length? Or even a reasonably established rule of thumb?


iPhone Game Sprites I have made games with cocos2d for the iphone however I am looking to move on from that, is there a good direction you could suggest? If not I was planning on using what the SDK gives me, and so for example to make a sprite, say the player on screen, rather than a CCSprite, what would be best to use? What do I need to go and learn? Thanks.


Per Frame Function Calls versus Event Driven Messaging in Game Design The traditional game design, as I know it, uses polymorphism and virtual functions to update game objects states. In other words, the same set of virtual functions are called in regular(ex per frame) intervals on every object in the game. Recently, I discovered, that there is another event driven messaging system available to update states of game objects. Here, the objects usually are not updated on per frame basis. Instead, a highly efficient event messaging system is built, and game objects get updated only after receiving valid event message. Event Driven Game Architecture is well described in Game Coding Complete by Mike McShaffry . Could I kindly ask for help with the following questions What are the advantages and disadvantages of the both approaches? Where is one better over the other? Is Event driven game design universal and better in all areas? Is it therefore recommended for usage even in mombile platforms? Which one is more efficient and which is more difficult to develop? To clarify, my question is not about removing polymorphism completely from a game design. I simply wish to understand the difference and benefit from using event driven messaging vs regular(per frame) calls to virtual functions to update game state. Example This question caused a bit of controversy here, so let me offer you example According to MVC, the game engine is divided into three main parts Application Layer (Hardware and OS communication) Game Logic Game View In a racing game, the Game View is responsible for rendering the screen as quickly as possible, at least 30fps. Game View listens for player's input too. Now this happens Player presses fuel pedal to 80 GameView constructs a message "Car 2 Fuel Pedal Pressed to 80 " and sends it to Game Logic. Game Logic gets the message, evaluates, calculates new car's position and behavior and creates the following messages for GameView "Draw Car 2 Fuel Pedal Pressed 80 ", "Car 2 Sound Acceleration", "Car 2 Coordinates X, Y" ... GameView receives the messages and processes them accordingly


How might I eliminate asymmetrical gameplay caused by turn order? I'm designing a turn based game in which players profit from buying, transporting, and selling resources. Each turn, the map has to produce a certain number of resources and different locations, and resource prices have to be updated. Because of this, each round, after every player has taken their turn, the game state has to be updated resources are consumed produced, prices in each cell of the map need to be updated, etc. Originally, I was going to have a simple turn order, where each player took their turn, then the map is updated, then the cycle repeats in the same order. However, after a little bit of testing, it became clear that this gave a significant advantage to players who have their turn right after the map is updated. They're able to collect the newly produced resources before any one else has a chance to. The easiest way I could think of to balance out the gameplay for all players is to randomize the turn order after each round. While this would give everyone a fair chance, I'm worried that this might be too big of a shift away from strategy and towards luck. How might I eliminate asymmetrical gameplay caused by turn order?


Establishing if a tile is available to move into I'm working on a grid based game as a hobby project. Think of an ANSI game like ZZT. The grid is represented by a two dimensional array of objects which contain both the UI element which takes care of displaying the sprite image and also the data accompanying whatever is in that position on the grid. I'm having trouble working out the mechanics of elements on the game grid determining whether they are able to move into a neighbouring cell. Determining whether there is something in any given grid position is straightforward, as each instance of the class representing a cell on the grid has a property representing the sprite in occupation of the cell. Checking if this property is nil works fine in establishing if something static is there, but it becomes problematic if there are many objects moving from one grid position to another. The problems I'm having are Objects in grid cells will attempt to push objects out of their destination cell this is intended behaviour, so that the player or NPCs can move objects around. The object which is pushed will check if it is capable of moving in that direction, and if the cell into which it is being asked to move already contains another object. If it does, it will attempt to push that object, and so on and so on until an object either agrees to be pushed (into an empty spot), or refuses (because there is nowhere for it to move or because it cannot move in that direction). The return values for the attempt to push will then cascade back up to the originating object and the sprites all move (or not). This causes a problem, however, if there are several sprites moving in a straight line in the same direction. Rather than all moving forwards together (which they should), the last object in the line thinks that the next cell is occupied so tries to push the object in that cell, which is unnecessary, because that object will be moving anyway. This causes the objects to spread out with gaps between them, which is abnormal. Due to this, I considered having the objects check if the destination cell is occupied, and if so, check if the object in that cell will be moving out, and if anything else will be moving in. However, I'm concerned this could result in a condition where several objects may refuse to move because of each other's presence. I have considered looking at source code for a similar game, but I don't want to copy another implementation, rather I'm looking for guidance on how I can solve the problem. Thanks in advance!


Other games that employ mechanics like the game "Diplomacy" I'm doing a little bit of research and I'm hoping you can help me track down any games, other than Diplomacy (online version here), that employ all or some of the mechanics in Diplomacy (rules, short form). Examples I'm looking for Simultaneous orders given prior to execution of orders In Diplomacy, players "write down" their moves and execute them "at the same time" Support, in terms of supporting an attacker or defender "take" a territory. In Diplomacy, no one unit is stronger than another you need to combine the strength of multiple units to attack other territories. Rules for how move conflicts are resolved Example, 2 units move into a space, but only one is allowed, what happens. I may add to this list later, but these are the primary things I'm looking for. If you need clarification on anything just let me know. Note I tried asking this on GamingSE, but it was shot down. So, I am unsure where else I could post this. Since I am researching this for game development purposes, I assume this post is on topic. Please let me know if this is not the case. Please also feel free to re categorize this. Thanks!


Handling Latency in Multiplayer Shoot em ups I had an idea for an architecture, and I was wondering if anyone has implemented something like this or has used AWS or some other service to help? I thought about using NodeJS SocketIO to handle a server side for this cooperative shmup (think Raiden or Galaga) we are just starting to work on. We started to think about latency issues. The solution I came up with was to spin up down servers at the mid point of the 2 users playing with some epsilon value (say 300miles or something). Perhaps the server would allow up to 50 users to play simultaneously and after that it would deny requests, which would then spring up another server. This should cause latency to be about equal for the 2 users playing. Furthermore, if we are matching making users then we always pair the 2 closest users together. I suppose there are other factors to consider like user skill level, but I think right now we are most concerned about latency since it directly affects gameplay. Actually our game does require fairly precise timing. Also we want users to be able to see each other shoot since cool animations happen when they are in sync with each other. I suppose this is similar to how a fighting game might operate in terms of timing precision. Ideas? Thoughts? How have others approached this problem? Where can I start looking for examples?


Calculating the flavour of a dish in a cooking game I'm currently working on a game that sees players cook dishes and are scored on their performance. To determine whether a dish is good or not, I will be looking to see if these elements are balanced Salt Fat Acid A dish is made up of multiple ingredients and each ingredient will have its own salt, fat and acid levels. Adding too much or too little of an element (e.g. over salting) results in a weaker score for the player. There are also a few other factors that affect the salt, fat and acid balance The number of ingredients (adding more ingredients should reduce saltiness, fattiness and acidity) Acid can reduce the saltiness and fattiness of a dish. Salt can reduce the acidity of a dish. This idea comes from Samin Nosrat's book Salt, Fat, Acid Heat. Below is an image from her book where she breaks down 4 popular salads and shows how each of the ingredients affects each element. If the player was to recreate quot The Caesar quot salad, they should get a perfect score for balancing all those ingredients but if they created a salad with just bacon and anchovies it should be considered too salty. Texture is another element that the player needs to balance but this won't need to be calculated in the same way as the other elements. My plan here is to check if the player is making a salad it should have some crunch to it, whereas if they are making a roast the meat should be tender. Given a set of ingredients, I would like to calculate whether the dish is balanced or not. The game will probably have 100s of ingredients and I would like some advice on how to best calculate these elements, score the player and balance the many ingredient combinations a player can come up with.


iOS gaming with copyrighted characters? Can I use animate characters in an iOS game if I do a citation in the credits. Ex Steven univers in a fighting game and I list Rebecca Sugar in the Credits or by the character bio.


What is the logic behind these design decisions regarding difficulty levels? In some games you are unable to play on the harder difficulties before complete it on a lower difficulty. Why? Achievements are popular. In some games you do not get an achievement for completing the game on the hardest difficulty (e.g. Bethesda RPG's) but for just about everything else, Why?


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


How can I make the "Strength" attribute more attractive to Wizard Caster classes in a RPG game? I have a game where, among many attributes, is Strength and Constitution. In Ultima Online, Strength was used for hit points. However, I would like to avoid this as Hit Points are so incredibly important, every class will want to have a lot of them in any game you play. In almost all MMORPG's and in many RPG's, players stack constitution almost as much as their primary attribute. I have a plethora of ways in which INTELLIGENCE helps a WARRIOR type. It is the problem of the attribute STRENGTH helping a WIZARD type that is giving me so much difficulty. Strength can more easily be an important statistic for Warrior and Rogue types, as they are both melee damage and players tend to love stacking high damage. However, Strength is all but useless to a Wizard who casts spells from afar, and relies on Intelligence as their damage attribute. What can I do to strength, to make it more appealing to wizard types, or any class that does not perform any melee combat? Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not feel as though Spells Magic should be more powerful because someone has more physical muscles and capacity to lift more. It makes sense to give Magic more power if the caster had a lot of fortitude or a overall healthy body, but that is already defined as Constitution. I want to make Strength as attractive as Intelligence, to Wizard types than in stereotypical RPG's. I was able to find balance between a "Dumb Brute Warrior" vs "Intelligent Warrior". How can I find a balance between a "Buff Conan Wizard" vs "Intelligent but Frail Wizard" without introducing melee combat? Adding unique gameplay features or altering the traditional RPG style of play is more than welcome.


Writing a Master's Thesis on evaluating visual scripting systems I am thinking to write my Master's thesis around theorizing, and then implementing a PlayMaker or Kismet like (building game logic by visually arranging FSMs) tool in Unity. The only thing I am still concerned about is the actual research question that I should pose. I was kinda hoping that the more experienced game designers out there might know. Update What about reducing the use of visual programming to graphically designing FSM Action Transition flows, which can then be attached to game entities (very much like http playmaker.com does it)? Update 2 Regarding the evaluation of the approach I was thinking that it would not be so practical to try to quantitatively prove that my tool is better than the competition. This is in fact not the essence of the thesis. The problem that I see myself trying to solve is more of the type of "how do we prove that the approach is easy to pickup and learn from people without specific programming knowledge" I could build a "test sandbox" an unfinished puzzle level that each of the test subjects is supposed to complete by following a number of certain tasks. The taks will vary from simply adding a missing transition between two states, through correcting intentional mistakes in the logic, to designing entire state machines on one'e own. The evaluation will then be done based on the completion of the tasks.


How to break the feeling of busywork in a game I don't know if this topic has been explored before but in a handful of games I've played there comes a point where trying to explore everything, doing sidequests, or even trying to get gear starts feeling like busywork. That sort of feeling makes me less interested in the game, and I usually wind up either just stopping playing altogether or just breezing through the rest of the game just to get it finished and out of the way. This feeling seems to happen mostly with RPGs from my own personal experiences. How do you prevent activities the player can do (sidequests, exploration, item crafting, etc.) from feeling like artificial time padding or busywork?


Character coding programming Lately I tryed a few times to create characters for some games, but at some certain point (especially when collision detection came in) everything became messy and the interaction between chars, the world and certain items had a lot of bugs. So here is my question, how do you ussualy keep track of actions that your character is allowed to do, or more in general do you have some links advices how to set up a char efficiantly? I m working on a char right now, who should at least be able to run, jump, pick items up and use different fighting animations. Most ideas I came up with until now use some kind of action.priority action.duration system to determain whats possible and what not, or a "action manager" which defines for every action what is possible from that action on but it all doesnt work that well together.


Does this constitute as copyright infringement? Say there is a card game, and it has cards that arc out, and has certain types of memberships with certain features such as premium members being allowed to chat, or use private game rooms etc. If I, from scratch created a card game (for example, Hearts) that had similar arced cards, and had similar basic and premium memberships, but used all my own, graphics, sound, and theme, would this constitute as copyright infringement? Where is the line drawn for this sort of thing? Thanks


Alternatives to 'collecting coins' In the generic mario style game you collect coins as you go along your primary adventure (i.e. get to other side of the map). They usually offer generic additions like the ability to get extra lives and score. Other games like platformers use them additionally as currency for skins etc. Donkey kong 64 its bananas and they do something similar, only sometimes its linked to progression itself (banana medals). These all relate to collecting the same kind of item where touching them is all you need to do. Are there any examples or ideas applying the concept of coins (things you collect in a gameworld as you go along) to a more interesting game mechanic? For example in shooters I suppose it would be collecting weapons. In my case I'm specifically interested in what might be added to a top down 2d game. Whether they should be optional asides (mario coins) or more important to progression (banana medals unlocking maps)...I would look for alternatives more to the optional side. Looking more to the collection side of the mechanic. There's alot you could do with the money, but don't focus so much on that part.


Method for creating a next gen MMORPG out of thin air? Update August 2012 thank you all for your answers. I started small as suggested, creating first a Facebook Game about it, the next step will be to port it later on PC for a 3D version, and much later as a MMORPG as I would have build credibility and funding. The upcoming FB game will be done by Blup Blup Game Studio (my studio). Thanks. Original Question Background I am documenting since a few months a game design document (GDD)(sci fi amp fantasy MMORPG) all by myself, without any real game design background (I am just a Chartered Accountant (CA and CISA)). For now, it looks more like a proposal document. The question If you would have a series of amazing ideas that would revolutionized MMORPGaming how would you create that company out of thin air? Focus on creating the initial core team that would create the mockup that would be present to capital venture companies for major financing. You may not be financial expert here but you did a massive amount of games in the past, of various types and platforms. With our different backgrounds we are complementary. Cheers, Raistx P. S. Edited for a leaner question. Removed elements linked to money as it's not the core question. I know how to get money and convince cap venture CIES, but I need a mockup high pitch to do so.


MMORPG game balancing I've seen a couple of examples of some game balancing techniques in books yet they are not comprehensive and not particularly aimed at MMORPGs but I'm looking for practical examples of game balancing techniques for MMORPGs. I am interested to know if anyone has documented the techniques used in popular games with proven success in this area. Ideally, any resource would cover most common types of stats and include layman mathematical models or techniques used to balance game mechanics found in advanced MMORPGs (I know it's a clich , but WoW style) Any help would be great!


Does Pokemon use any deep A.I in battle? A Pokemon wild battle. The enemy may have up to 4 moves. I am wondering, is there any.. A.I going on here, or does the enemy simply take a random move and then executes it? Are there not any battle factors conditions that may change the enemy's behavior? I guess it makes sense to categorize moves by "Offensive" "Defensive" and or "Healing", and from there make choices depending on HP etc... dunno.


How to give the player the feeling of being chased by enemies and force him her to rush I have already asked a question about the difficulty progression in my endless runner game How to make difficulty progression in my endless runner game? Now I have to decided that it is a good approach to make the following Camera is always drifting up, slowly, but preventing the player from idling. If squirrels jump, the camera follows them and the spiders also update their position to be slightly below visible area. Their speed is a little bit faster than the camera's drifting speed, so the player will panic out of the fear of the spiders catching them. Something else? I want to make feel of constant chase by spiders and force player to run, make quick decisions and make mistakes. Player need to know exactly how close the spiders to squirrels are. P.S You can see earlier version of this game here http ludumdare.com compo ludum dare 34 ?action preview amp uid 66055 EDIT The problem is that spiders are always relatively close to player and distance between them and the spiders matters. Once spiders have left the visible area, player feels safe. Firstly, spiders run with constant speed and if the player runs a little bit faster, he is always in the safe area and doesn't see any spiders. The idea is to have player under pressure all time. The difficulty is that the visible area between the spiders and squirrels is small FINAL DECISION The final decision was made because of majority votes, and I suppose this answer suits for many games. But there is more than one good answer, and most of the answers are worth reading and implementing. That is what I am going to do. Thanks everyone for your great answers! FINAL NOTE you can check final implementation finding released game on market https play.google.com store apps details?id by.Ludum.Vaverki


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?


How to design rating (leaderboard) I have a quiz online game. For each game there is a prize (number of scores). Now I have three ratings top for the last day, top for the last week, total top (based on the sum of scores). Sum is not bad, but there is an issue the more you play (even with bad results), the higher you are because more games leads to more points. I want to build a new rating, that takes in account not only sum of scores, but performance in games to. Just an average prize is not a good idea for me, because it means that winner of a single game will be higher, than a person who won 9 games and got not maximum score in the last one. Do you have any ideas experience, what formulas could be used? Thanks.


How do I make voting to kick a "leader" player fair? My game has many rooms of around 10 people where they compete. It's basically one big guy against the other small 9 people. However, sometimes the one guy will intentionally 'troll' and make for an unfun game for the other 9 people. These people would like to kick the one guy to replace him with one of the other 9. If the vote was required to be unanimous (other than the guy being kicked), then him just having one friend in the game would prevent the vote from passing. Likewise, if you did unanimous minus one, then two friends could stop the vote, etc. There there is the issue with small rooms. If a room has only two or three people, then one guy can trivially kick other people. Has any research been done for optimal votes required to kick someone from a room depending on how many people are in the room?


Ways to present levels overview I'm working on a game that will have lots of (more than 100) levels. The player has to finish a level before she can play the next one, but also can play levels again that are already finished. Now I'm looking for ways on how to present an overview of the levels to the player. A simple list (with a small graphic showing the level) is of course a possibility, but I wonder what other, perhaps less boring, ways there are.


What to watch out for when creating a autobiographical game? I plan to create a game which depicts various events from my life. During these events, some people I know do not appear in a very positive light. I am afraid that these people might feel that it is an infraction on their personality rights. I also plan to unveil some of my own actions which they didn't know before and which could make them angry if they knew of them. The story of the game as I currently plan it will be written in a way that if they know I made the game, they would realize that they are the ones depicted. Even if they have different names and appearance. But despite these risks I feel that this project is important for me and might help me to cope with some events from my past. What should I watch out for when I write and publish the game to make sure I won't ruin my relationship with these people?


Where could I look online to learn about being a game designer? I'm interested in being a video game designer but I know next to nothing about how to do what ever it is I will be doing as a game designer. Could you offer any advice of a good online area where I could learn about the basics of game designing and later on the more complicated information.


How should the player unlock things? Imagine a mobile phone game that is meant to be played in short sessions (5 10 mins). You can choose one out of many characters, and each character slightly alters the way the game plays. Those characters are all locked and have to be unlocked by purchasing them with in game money. Should the player be able to choose which one to unlock? Besides the obvious benefit of being able to choose who you want to unlock, the downside of this method is that players often end up having choice paralysis With tons of characters to choose from, the player will just not bother reading every character's pros and cons and make a choice. Should the player just be able to unlock a random character? This is a more casual friendly method, as the player will just spend their in game money without thinking because there's no other options. The downside of this is that paying for a character that doesn't suit your playstyle may feel bad. Other solutions? Maybe you have another solution on your mind? Note that some characters make the game more high risk high reward, aimed for veteran players, while other characters just make the game easier to play.


How to handle RTS Click And Move in 3D Space? How can I handle the click and move in a complete 3D space? It is easy to handle on a 2D plane by a simple raycast, but this is not the case in 3D since there is no end plane for a raycast to get an end point. I have two ideas in mind Do raycast, then allow player to select distance on the ray by another input (mousewhell, for example). Instead of complete 3D, have multiple "layers of height", so player can change the height layer before ordering the move. What are your thoughts?


How would you code an AI engine to allow communication in any programming language? I developed a two player iPhone board game. Computer players (AI) can either be local (in the game code) or remote running on a server. In the 2nd case, both client and server code are coded in Lua. On the server the actual AI code is separate from the TCP socket code and coroutine code (which spawns a separate instance of AI for each connecting client). I want to be able to further isolate the AI code so that that part can be a module coded by anyone in their language of choice. How can I do this? What tecniques technology would enable communication between the Lua TCP socket coroutine code and the AI module?


Can one build a game based on something that already exists and make money off of it? Possible Duplicate Is it legally possible to make a clone of the game? I was planning on producing a game but then I had to stall. I have an idea to make a game, but its very similar to a game already out there. If I made my own graphics, audio and use my own code, would I be allowed to sell it?


Game Mechanics Suitable for a Game about Issues of Immigrations So, I'm working on a video game design concept, dealing with the problems of an immigrant family and how they will try to blend in the society. The universe is a fictional universe. I was wondering what game systems mechanics genres are suitable for such a concept? How can I use the mechanics in a sense that will be coherent with the narrative that I'm trying to tell?


How to achieve "Perfect Imbalance" I've heard the term "perfect imbalance" thrown around a lot, which seems to imply that it is okay for different game options to be strictly superior to others as long as the 'better' options require more player skill to use. What strategies does one employ, generally, to achieve this? And am I even understanding the principle correctly?


How can I make space recognizable and easy to orient in? I'm thinking about making a game set in space, that would feature very large, procedurally generated game world (many stars, planets and what have you). However, I foresee a big problem cosmic space is mostly featureless. It's almost the same everywhere the same black emptiness with stars. This is obviously bad. A large game world must be different in different places, so that the player can understand where she is, and how to get where she needs. What can I do to make different, recognizable places in space? The game I'm envisioning is 2D (a bit like Space Rangers), with space pictures used only in background. However, I'm interested in any techniques, 2D or 3D. Clarification What I need here is not just ability to orient in game space, but rather having different places so that the game feels more interesting. Here's an example imagine any space trading game (like Elite or X or whatever). You visit different star systems, but they're all generally alike a dock to repair refuel, a shop to trade, a bar to take missions contracts... Some Tau Ceti III differs from KZ'ish VI mostly by name. I believe that every place, or at least most places that player visits should be different from each other, and immediately recognizable, so that player has a sense of wonder and discovery as she explores the universe. Of course, making every star system a full fledged 3D level with its own visual style would work, but that's prohibitively expensive even for a big budget game. Are there any other ways to achieve this wonder and discovery?


Why are spherical worlds so rare? I remember back in the 90s when X Com came out, being really impressed by the way its world map was an actual world a map of Earth drawn on a spherical surface. That was pretty cool, because I had never seen it before. And now, thinking back... I can't recall just off the top of my head ever seeing it again, with the obvious exception of X Com Terror From The Deep, which used the same engine. Most games that have an entire planet world map either use a rectangle that wraps around at the sides but not the top and bottom (a cylinder), or a rectangle that wraps around at all four edges (an impossible geometry that some people call a "torus", even though it can't actually represent a real torus.) And that makes me wonder why. What difficulties does attempting to build a spherical world map for a video game raise, that it's so incredibly rare to actually see it done?


Turn based board game server references? Are there any good references books to recommend about how to build a turn base game server? It's something like a chess server for pairing chess players and keep game states. In the past, for example the IGS (for go, weiqi) is a socket based implementation. What are the available contemporary technologies to learn from? Thanks!


What makes a good jump scare? I am working on a game and would like to include a few jump scares. So here is a rather simple question What makes a good jump scare and when and how should they happen?


What is "convexity" in the context of game design? I have overheard game designers mentioning something called convexity in games. This seems to be a game design specific concept, different from (although possibly related to) that in geometry or game theory. Unfortunately there are very few sources online mentioning it, let alone a definition. From what I could gather, it has something to do with player choices. So what is convexity? How does it manifest in a game? What's an example of it, or the lack of it? Is it a good thing, a bad thing, or if it depends, when is it good, when is it bad?


How to resolve combat of stacks of units to mitigate numerical advantage I just started designing an strategy game where player's armies consist of stacks of units. For my design I was aiming to reproduce the following behaviour for a full combat of multiple turns (for simplicity assume both stacks are the same unit) 1 vs full stack the single unit is killed, the full stack hardly notices. half stack vs full stack the half stack is killed, the full stack sustain noticeable damage. almost full stack vs full stack full stack wins but gets almost wiped out. If randomness is involved, any of both may win, although the bigger one has statistical advantage. My first approach was to add up the stats and treat each stack as a single unit, resolve the combat and then calculate how many units are killed. That didn't produced the expected results, as even the slight numerical advantage in one side produced it to win by a huge margin. The reason is that after each turn, the bigger stack would kill more enemies than the smaller, widening the power difference for the next turn. This different increases exponentially until the smaller stack is quickly obliterated. As a second approach I treated each unit in a stack individually for the combat (something that I wanted to avoid), which produces much better results. However now I have many choices about how to resolve the combat. Should it be a series of 1 vs 1 or should I allow units to gang up on others? Should I pair each evenly or randomly? Should I leave extra units unpaired as "reserve", or all units should fight at least once?


Anyone know the frames per second that IOS apps run? Anyone know the frame rate that iphones, ipads, and even android mobiles run?


Good recent examples of educational games? I'm looking to make an educational game. I know they have a horrible reputation, but I still think there's a future for them. Unfortunately, it seems to me like most educational games were in the 90s. Does anyone know of any recent, semi decent educational games? I'm specifically interested in teaching a subject (ie, Chemistry) rather than a skill (ie, typing). I know there was this question How do I make educational games engaging not boring? But it was over 5 years ago.


Is it possible to design a multiplayer game which can be played from different devices? I want to design a online multiplayer game for all gaming devices e.g. Desktop PC, Internet browser, Android phones, Android tablets, iPhone, iPad, XBOX 360 etc. Now my main requirement is that, I want all devices can be used to play the game in multiplayer mode together i.e. One player can be connected using PC another using Android phone and other may be with iPhone or iPad. My doubts are How to make all devices to connect to common game server? What will be the logic for graphics and texture because all devices screen will be of different aspect ratio?


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!)


Is there a name for this kind of mini game? (cursor moves on a bar, press key in part of the bar to win) Today I played a game which has a mini game in it, basically it looks like this here's a bar and a cursor moves back and forth on it ( cursor quot quot moves in this direction gt ) ( when the cursor reaches the end, it goes back lt ) If I hit a key when the cursor is on the specific part of the bar (which I used the quot quot sign to represent), I win. Otherwise I lose. This kind of mini game is pretty common as I've seen many variant of it in a lot of games, yet I don't know the name of it. Does it have a name? What's the origin of it? EDIT There's an answer mentions QTE. Well... I'm aware of that and I don't think this mini game belongs in that category thus I avoided using that term. Here's the reason for that QTEs have time limits, after all it's Quick time event, this kind of mini game I'm asking about usually doesn't. Well, I've seen variations of it that does count as lose if you didn't hit the key in some amount of time, it's not the main focus of it. Unlike how QTEs are all about testing player's reflex, this kind of mini game is all about precision, as seen in many rhythm games. However, it doesn't necessary have any audible cue like rhythm games do, it's all about learning the pattern speed of the moving cursor then press the key at the right time. It's not about how quick you can press a key, but when to press the key. Hence I don't think this counts as a QTE.


What tools software are used to make the environments levels maps in games? This question has probably been answered before but I've not been able to find the answer, since I'm not able to frame the question with brevity. So the whole question is The worlds levels that you see in games like Crysis, Assassin's Creed, etc, what do the designers and developers use to create them? Do they use the tools present inside the engine (whether proprietary or in house) or a separate software that exports these worlds as an importable object for the game engine to use to load models into it, etc? I know this is a very general question but I have been curious regarding this for some time. I have used Unity in the past and it had a terrain toolkit that could be used to make the terrain, and I'm pretty sure it had completely to do with my lack of skill but I wasn't even close to making an environment that looked like the ones you see these days.


Should input be per frame or per update? I'm implementing a GUI system to look around a 2D tile based world. At the moment, I'm updating it every time the mouse moves (which happens to be per frame, since that's when it polls for events). However, I'm wondering if implementing it per update (by taking all input events, averaging them out, then deferring them for processing until the next update) would be better. I figure it would make the GUI feel more consistent but at the cost that it may not be as responsive (since I can't interpolate the movement without the controls feeling "sticky"). In terms of creative a better interface, which should I go with? What do games normally go with?


Shot em up! Vertical or Horizontal "side scrolling"? Question it s about quot Shot em up quot style game (For example Tyrian) also known as Top Down shooters. These games in the past mostly exist as top down concept, it means player object can move from the left to the right and enemies start appearing from the top of the screen and moving down to the screen. This concept was probably picked due to the monitors aspect ratios in the past where was most spreaded 4 5. Also this concept are very popular on mobile phones, because is sometimes more user friendly not using landscape mode when playing. There was a very little titles, when the concept Top Down are changed Right left It means, player object is on left screen side and moving Top and Down, and the enemies moving from right to the left. Also, there is almost no titles on desktops when current aspect ratios are mostly 16 9. Even if some new Modern Shot em up is released, mostly pick the Top Down concept. And my question is, is there any reason for that on Desktops target platform? I think for the current monitor aspect ratios 16 9 Right Left better fit the gameplay and user experience. Or Am I missing something?


Is there a purpose behind the tediousness of most MMO RPGs? As most of you probably know a lot, if not all, MMO RPG games have some element of "tediousness" in them. By "tediousness" I mean elements in the gameplay that feel both unpleasant and needlessly complicated or long (note that grinding is simply unpleasant and therefore I do not include it in this question). For example introductory quests. I don't mean the idea of introductory quests, which I think good. I mean their implementation. For example in some games, where you can have several characters per account, each time you create a new character you have to go though the same introduction. You are not offered the option to skip it, regardless that you might already have a high leveled character. Surely there must a point to this? For another example in some games the introduction is needlessly long. It could take an average player a few days to get past it, it doesn't add anything storywise and the game concepts have long been explained by the time the player reaches even half. What is the rationale behind putting the player through all this, instead of giving him the option to skip the intro and or making it only as long as it needs to be, etc.?


Design Document Contents What is the minimum content that a game design document should have?


What should the data structure of a flexible ability system look like? Hi guys I am currently working on a turn based RPG that will require me to create numerous abilities with little overlap. I've been looking to other games to see how their ability and combat system is design and has run into issues regarding the data structure. For the purpose of this question let's look at Pokemon RED amp BLUE's ability system. Here are a few things that abilities can do Target User or Target Enemy or Both (i.e. Self Destruct) Has an Accuracy Value Has 1 2 Element value Has PP Value Is either a Special or Normal attack type (determines which stat is used to calculate the damage value.) Increase Decrease a primary Stat for the battle (ATK, DEF, SATK, SDEF, SPD, LUK) Increase Decrease overall Accuracy of the target by X for Y turns (or the entire combat.) Increase Decrease overall Evasion of the target by X for Y turns (or the entire combat.) Deal Damage to Target for X amount (Where X can be based on calculated from the ability's base damage value, or using the damage taken that turn i.e. Counter) Heal the Target for X amount (Where X can be based on calculated from the ability's base power OR based on damage dealt by the ability, i.e. Absorb) Skips X Turn (i.e. Dig) Critical chance X for this attack. Has X chance to apply Status Effect Y (Y being Burn, Confuse, Sleep, Poison, etc) 1 Hit KO Target Cannot be hit for X turn (i.e. Dig) Hits X times (Taking the ability's Accuracy value into account each time.) Forces the attack to happen first Forces the attack to happen last I believe there may be many more. Now, Pokemon abilities can manifest a combination of any number of the above properties, usually no more than 3 4. For example Counter Skip 1 turn and deals damage to the enemy equal to 2x the damage received that turn as long as it's a Normal or Fighting move. Dig Skip 1 turn, cannot be attacked that turn, deal damage next turn. Absorb Deals damage, at the same time heal the user for 1 2 the damage dealt. Self Destruct Kills self and deal huge damage to the enemy. Comet Punch Hits the enemy 2 5 times (each time the hit chance is 85 ) As you can see, this gets quite complex. The examples cited above are just a few of the abilities that the game have and with those capabilities, it's possible to create quite a varied set of abilities that do not overlap. The problem I am facing is 2 folds How would I design the data structure that would allow me to keep adding new abilities like this into the Database after the system has already been written? How would the combat system actually handle the data once it's pulled out? I assume that it will have to involve some form of scripting... and unstructured data structure like NoSQL so some abilities can have some things and some do not (like skipping turns.) However, how is this normally done? Do I store each ability as a blob somehow and handle them differently in code? That also means that the code MUST be able to handle ALL possible combinations (which will make the combat system extremely complex and time consuming to build?) Or did Pokemon just hard coded all the abilities (which seems quite impractical?) Here's what we currently have for our ability data structure (in JSON) "name" "Ability Name", "accuracy" 0.85, "base" 50, "type" 0, (0 normal, 1 special) "target" 0, (0 self, 1 enemy, 2 both) "PP" 30, "element1" 1, (0 16, for each element) "element2" 2, "blob" ... This will allow for something like the above, but the code would still have to handle all the possible combination of the blob. Would my understanding be correct here? Any insight would be extremely appreciated. P.S. If this question need to be reworded somehow to make it clearer, please let me know... it's an extremely complex problem so I did as best I could, but would appreciate feedback. Thanks!


What elements are indispensable to players of a tactical strategy game? Tactical strategy games typically involve area capture control, unit building, terrain effects, various specialized unit types. Some will include resource gathering management, unit customization advancement, experience benefits for units, tech research trees, and commander powers. Many are turn based to allow careful planning, while others are real time. Some have movement and targeting restricted by a grid, while others calculate rate of speed and distance and in the case of 3d or pseudo 3d arcs of fire in vertical elevation. A few have side quests, a plot story line possibly branching, and an overall theme or genre of some type (sci fi, fantasy, modern, etc). User interface elements are also critical to consider. Of these elements, and any additional elements not listed that can be thought of, which are the most indispensable? Which elements make or break a game, and keep you coming back or drive you away? Please provide only the top three answers with supporting explanations and references, if available. Should platform impact the answer, please assume a game developed for both mobile devices and computers.


Can inflation exist in a fixed price Mmorpg world? Assumptions Crafting materials are infinite. Limit is player boredom. Players can only trade through the auction house. All prices are fixed. Players cannot decide arbitrary prices. Goods in auction house stay stored for infinite duration and cannot be withdrawn by auction creator (except if he pays 100 item price 10 auction fee). Sell algorithm is FIFO (First item placed by any player is first item sold). Crafting and gathering professions have a cool down of 10 craft points per day. Questions Points to talk about All players will be happy, fair 100 prices, scam free, no need to play stock exchange market to make a profit through crafting. New Players would have the same experience even if they arrive too late to the game. Money never loses its value, you could store money in a bank, arrive after 10 years to the game and buy everything at the same price. In contrast in WOW, a simple copper ore was worth 10 silver at the game start and now has ended as 200 silver. That's 2000 inflation. By having fixed prices, you guarantee that even if all players in the universe have 99999999999g in their pocket, the goods are worth the same. So that's guaranteed 0 inflation. Hackers may cry all they want, but goods prices will never change. Why didn't WOW Diablo III used this model? They would have become billionaires with the 10 money grab technique. Btw my previous question on economy overflow was never answered, probably that site is dead. https economics.stackexchange.com questions 14609 understanding inflation in a video game


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.


How can I control how quickly a character levels up in an RPG? I am working on an RPG and I've mostly followed formulas from the Dragon Quest series and they've all been fairly simple. (For example, dmg (Attack 2 Defense 4), where Attack is Weapon Power STR.) Experience points are more complicated though. I want one of the characters to level more slowly compared to the others. I'm not comfortable with the maths, but how would I go about creating a suitable exponential growth formula that is slow from let's say levels 1 through 40 and then speeds up to 99?


Which purpose do armor points serve? I have seen a mechanic which I call "armor points" in many games Quake, Counter Strike, etc. Generally, while the player has these armor points, he takes less damage. However, they act in a similar fashion that health points do you lose them by taking said damage. Why would you design such a feature? Is this just health 2.0, or am I missing something? To me, armor only makes sense in, for example, RPG games, where it is a constant that determines your resistance. But I don't see why would it need to be reduceable during combat.


Should I store game settings in my game data class? I'm working on a small ish 2d fixed shoot 'em up for iPhone. I have a master Game object that stores lives, score, current level, etc... The game will have some other persistent attributes like Music and Sound mute state, difficulty level (easy, medium, hard). Should I put those attributes in the Game class or should they be on their own? What's the rule of thumb to decide how to partition attributes among classes?


What are good ways to find collaborators for a coding weekend? Not sure if this belongs here, feel free to push it somewhere else if needed. When i was at university we would sometimes come together into a room full of beer and fast food and crank out software in a weekend. Unfortunately the group has kind of split up and its just not possible any more. My question is now Where can i find like minded people on the Internet that would like to do something like this? I have an idea what i wanted to do next, but of course other people have ideas too.


What are good questions for design interns? I've recently been interviewing design interns and been pitching what I consider fairly easy practical design questions to measure their skill level. I've been shocked by poor quality of answers. Now this may be the quality of the applicants. What questions do you ask an entry level games designer to probe for their skill level?


Handling Latency in Multiplayer Shoot em ups I had an idea for an architecture, and I was wondering if anyone has implemented something like this or has used AWS or some other service to help? I thought about using NodeJS SocketIO to handle a server side for this cooperative shmup (think Raiden or Galaga) we are just starting to work on. We started to think about latency issues. The solution I came up with was to spin up down servers at the mid point of the 2 users playing with some epsilon value (say 300miles or something). Perhaps the server would allow up to 50 users to play simultaneously and after that it would deny requests, which would then spring up another server. This should cause latency to be about equal for the 2 users playing. Furthermore, if we are matching making users then we always pair the 2 closest users together. I suppose there are other factors to consider like user skill level, but I think right now we are most concerned about latency since it directly affects gameplay. Actually our game does require fairly precise timing. Also we want users to be able to see each other shoot since cool animations happen when they are in sync with each other. I suppose this is similar to how a fighting game might operate in terms of timing precision. Ideas? Thoughts? How have others approached this problem? Where can I start looking for examples?


How to measure skill in a pinball game? I am trying to come up with a system to measure or estimate the skill of a player at a single player game (so no head to head rating system help here). Specifically, it is a pinball game, but I do believe it is similar to most point based single player games. I have thought of 3 approaches total points scored with a threshold for each skill level average points scored over all time average points scored over last X games All of them use points, which I think is probably the right metric anything a player does in pinball grant points, with the most difficult objectives worth more points. Points also take into account all of the rare combination of objectives (like score multiplier multiball) that would be hard to track manually. However, I am not sure which approach to use and I bet other games have implemented similar skill measuring system that I can use as a guide, so I'd appreciate any and all help on this.


Randomly generated story I'm developing a game at the moment and I had an idea where the game's story line would randomly generate as the player progressed and their actions would affect the story. Would this be a bad idea in terms of gameplay or would a storyline that has multiple endings be the best idea?


What makes a game a game vs something else like a puzzle or a toy? Famously the Sims and similar games have been described by some designers as Toys and not "really" games. I'm curious if there is a good answer to what makes something a game. For example many companies sell Sudoku games EA has an iPhone one, IronSudoku offers a great web based one, and there are countless others on most platforms. Many newspapers publish Sudoku puzzles in their print editions and often online. What differentiates a game from a puzzle? (or are all Sudoku "games" misnamed?) I'm not convinced there is a simple or easy answer but I'd love to be proven wrong. I've seen some definitions and emphasize "rules" as core to something being a game (vs. "real life") but puzzles have rules as well as do many other things. I'm open to answers that either focus only on computer games (on any platform) or which expand to include games and gameplay across many platforms. Here to I'm not fully convinced the lines are clear is a "game" of D amp D played over a virtual tabletop with computer dice rollers, video amp audio chat a computer game or something else? (I'd lean towards something else but where do you draw that line?)


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"?


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.


Make a place or city feel crowded in procedural generated worlds I have thought about this while thinking about a game concept, but it should be applicable to many game types. Imagine an RPG or something else with an open world. Normally you would want to populate your world to make it feel alive and allow for interaction with NPCs in any form (talk, steal from, kill.. whatever). Now, what if you don't have the option to fill it with NPCs or similar. My example would be a procedural generated RPG world where you want to enter a house filled with people or even a city. It would be strange for none of the NPCs to talk to you. Another example might be a space station your ship is docking to. There might be only one or two NPCs you are able to talk to, but the space station could be steaming with other people, but you might not acces them somehow. Sure, one possibility would be to have procedural generate NPCs with random messages as well, but depending on the size of the city and or the amount of NPCs you would need a lot of NPCs with different messages. And then it would be easily possible to have to NPCs with identical messages. The other problem would be that you would end up with to many NPCs, that make the place feel overfilled instead of just crowded. I image that a hard number or relation for space to NPCs is impossible to pinpoint, but you surely get my point. So, my question is, what other possibilities are there to make a city place feel crowded? Maybe with NPCs, or maybe even without?


What is the difference between "stealth" and "social stealth?" I was recently researching the stealth mechanics of several games and I stumbled across the distinction of "stealth" (eg. Splinter Cell series) vs "social stealth" (eg. Assassin's Creed series). What exactly is the difference between these two terms?


Writing a dynamic achievement system without hardcoding rules into the application I really enjoyed the solution provided here for groundwork on writing an achievement framework. The problem I have is I have game designers that would like to be able to insert achievements into a CMS at runtime. In a way, it sounds insane and complex to do this, but is it really? I think the concept of having to do a hard push of the application for every new achievement is cumbersome. I would love to be able to give our designers the capability to put together new achievements by entering them into a database. It shouldn't matter what tool I'm using, but for those interested, my backend is being written in JRuby (Ruby on top of the JVM). What are some possible ways of going about abstracting the logic in the aforementioned link even further so that rules can be interpreted at runtime?


How to deal with Character body parts from Design to Cocos2d I'm trying to figure out the pattern the game developers use together with game designers See the picture below with the independent parts Questions 1) Should I create different image parts from different body parts or keep frame by frame animaton? (I know both can be used, but I'm trying to figure what is commonly used in the industry) 2) If I'm going to generate different image parts from different body parts (which is I thing is more logical) how would I export that to Cocos2d (Vector or Bitmap)?


Multi disciplined Strength or Weakness? My last two credited titles I was Lead Programmer then moved to Lead Design role. At my current company I kinda switch between design and programming hats quite often. The bulk of my education is in programming and my experience is pretty broad. I honestly can't pick which I prefer, and if I focused then I think I would do the other in my spare time. My colleagues consider me capable in both roles. I'm currently looking for opportunities, some at larger companies, and often people seem to be thrown by my dual role. I feel like it may be damaging my chances in some cases, because they can't easily fit me into the company. Should I just pick one and focus or is it viable to continue wearing my two hats?


Low dexterity game development I am tasked with developing a game for kids with low dexterity (as a college project). I am stuck trying to find examples of similar games to generate ideas about game play and overall function. The general idea is that these kids wont be using a fully featured controller, it will be more basic, for example just a joystick. Can anyone point me in the direction where I might find some resources (specifically game play ideas) to aid the in the development of low dexterity games?


Easy SpriteKit question on creating a function The following code is what I'm working on to animate characters in a SK scene class. I can run the code without building, no problem, but I can't build it and run it I get one error message Binary operator ' ' cannot be applied to operands of type ' (SKTexture) ' and ' SKTexture! '. The code is below func initStoryBegin() let CaitAtlas SKTextureAtlas(named "cait") let DrewAtlas SKTextureAtlas(named "drew") CwalkAnimation self.animateSheet(CaitAtlas, walkAnimation CwalkAnimation, formattedword "cait 01d") This is where I am having trouble. In the walkAnimation line. func animateSheet(nameAtlas SKTextureAtlas!, walkAnimation (SKTexture) , formattedword String) gt SKTexture for index in 1...nameAtlas.textureNames.count let imgName String(format formattedword, index) walkAnimation nameAtlas.textureNamed(imgName) println(walkAnimation) return walkAnimation override func touchesBegan(touches Set lt NSObject gt , withEvent event UIEvent) let charNode self.childNodeWithName("charNode") if (charNode ! nil) let animation SKAction.animateWithTextures(CwalkAnimation, timePerFrame 0.2) charNode?.runAction(animation) I can't figure out why the code works when I run it, but it doesn't work when I try to build and run? Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Designing a game Where to start? A friend of mine and I are planning a game together to work on in our free time. It's not an extensive game, but it's not a simple one either. He's working on the story behind the game while I'm working on the graphics and code. I don't really know where to start with the game. We know what the basic type of game it's going to be and how it would be played, but I'm having a hard time of actually knowing where to begin. I have Xcode open but I don't really even know what I should be designing first. What is some advice for this writer's block? Where is a good place to start with a game? Should I design all the graphics and layout before even touching Xcode? Should I program the things I know I'll have difficulty with first before getting to the easy stuff?


How can I design an effective game object interaction scheme with a component based architecture? This is a design question... I'm sure this could be generalized more, but I'm having a hard time with it. I am wondering about design for game object interactions here is my example (2D puzzle platformer). Say the player is trying to progress through a level. There are many lights that can be pointed in different directions. Here is an example of how these light objects might interact... One light projects a platform that allows the player to cross a gap One light decreases the friction coefficients of anything it touches, another increases it One light nulls the effects of all lights, which would make the platform disappear while that light is on and null the friction modifiers Etc... What is the best way to approach this problem when using a component architecture? Components for each major object seem obvious, as well as a clean way to define their effects on the environment. A class to "resolve" interaction (seems like that could become a mess quickly)? Some usage of the decorator pattern to create combined objects for those that are interacting at a given time? A data structure that lends itself to this? Also, connecting audio to these interactions? It seems like connecting audio to the system would be just like connecting any other property, like visibility or player movement collision. Obviously as more components are added it would be nice if there was a robust system that could handle new ones with little modification, but I am not familiar with how to go about designing this. Other Information The engine I am using is an XNA engine called IceCream.


Match 3 game level generator I made match 3 game and now i trying to add level generator. Now I generate level by filling random cells with random blocks, but I want to create generator which for given number of moves and number of block kinds generate level. What algorithms I can use if they exists?


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?


Is programming skill required for game development? I do not know how to program. Can I contribute in any way to game development?


Is there a reason online video games don't have "benches"? In many physical team sports, in addition to the players deployed on the field, there are also players on the bench who the coach can sub in when the players get tired or run into unforseen circumstances. This is more common at low levels of play. However, in online e sports (e.g. Overwatch, League of Legends, Counter Strike), this is almost universally absent, with everyone who queues expected to play the entire duration of the game. This is not always possible, nor, in the case of solo queue, always desired. If it does exist at all, it involves players joining games in progress, which means that the subbing team is left with no one until a replacement shows up, and players being subjected to new skill ratings that they weren't originally matched up to. I have never seen the concept of one or more bench players being available from the start, known to both teams at the start, and available to sub in as needed, akin to how a physical sport would operate. Why is this? Are there cons to such a system that would cause it to fail or cause more problems than it solves? Has this been tried before somewhere?


Which elements make some maps in multiplayer FPS games more fun than others? I'm working on a sci fi multiplayer FPS game, and am currently designing maps with layout influences from the 2015 Star Wars Battlefront game and from the original Halo CE game, as those games have the maps which I find very enjoyable. When I was building the map layouts for my game, I started to wonder why I was looking at these older games for reference instead of, say, maps from these games's sequels. I know that the enjoyability of certain maps is subjective, but there's a big difference in the amount of fun my friends and I have had playing the maps in these specific games instead of the newer sequels. Something about the maps in these games provides an inherently fun, memorable experience, and some newer games (like Battlefront II or Halo V) lack that experience. Maybe some of these maps aren't really anything special, but I know that certain maps like Blood Gulch have been praised by fans for years. What makes these maps so memorable and fun to play on multiplayer? Is it a product of the developers' map making experience and the resources of the large companies (the Battlefront devs went to Iceland for reference), or are there specific layout styles and or structures that are known to provide interesting close quarters scenarios? Is there an intangible quality to good maps?


Skill vs. Luck, the ratio and its measurement Gamer buddies, is there a term to describe the level of variance in a game, in comparison to luck. The card game war would have 0 skill and 1.0 luck because the player cannot affect the game. I can't think of something that has 1.0 skill. At first I thought Spelling Bee, but the words chosen for each contestant is randomly chosen suggesting some luck involved... What ratios do different games have, and how can those ratios be accurately measured? What metrics could be used to accurately measure such a ratio? I'd also like to hear of any 1.0 skill games if anyone can think of one. To reiterate the question clearly does there exist such a measurement and if so what is it? Furthermore is there a term for the target of this measurement, so we can have a discussion using a noun. EDIT the term luck is used to describe the level of effect that chance, i.e. random events, have in affecting who the winner is. I appreciate everyone's responses.


Character coding programming Lately I tryed a few times to create characters for some games, but at some certain point (especially when collision detection came in) everything became messy and the interaction between chars, the world and certain items had a lot of bugs. So here is my question, how do you ussualy keep track of actions that your character is allowed to do, or more in general do you have some links advices how to set up a char efficiantly? I m working on a char right now, who should at least be able to run, jump, pick items up and use different fighting animations. Most ideas I came up with until now use some kind of action.priority action.duration system to determain whats possible and what not, or a "action manager" which defines for every action what is possible from that action on but it all doesnt work that well together.


Why are character classes used in game design? We had a long discussion in my company about character classes. We are building a skill based game where you will eventually need to select 8 to enter a battle. I am a fan of classless systems, I have always felt that they are created to extend your gameplay hours in a fake way. We reached a few conclusions Classes are there to prevent "best build" scenario where everyone plays with optimal (Personally I feel that this is a weak case, You should be able to design a system where there is no win combination without classes) Classes create variety by offering different style of play (I agree with this but if you have the freedom to combine different skills you can actually create your own class) Classes make choosing style of play easier to players. Most of the times players play the same type of character in different games. (Damage Dealer, Healer, Thief Assassin etc.) (For me this makes most sense from all the arguments from above, but why force people to only part of the skills when you could offer them as templates) Why are character classes used in game design? Do you agree with the above points? Yes or no, why do you think like that?


Aiming in a twin stick shooter I am trying to implement a twin stick shooter game, sometimes referred to as dual stick shooter where the left stick controls movement, and the right stick aims a gun. What I do now, is directly map the stick angle to the gun angle, if the deflection is large enough. In pseudo code jx in 1,1 jy in 1,1 if lenght (jx,jy) gt 0.5 gun angle toangle( jx, jy ) This gives a very unsmoothed, twitchy signal for the aim. The gun can flicker in any direction in a single frame. In theory, the most responsive scheme, but on screen looks far too twitchy. So I wonder should I sacrifice some responsiveness for a smoother signal? Should I make the gun swivel around as I reverse the direction of the joystick, or just set it hard, like I do now? I've been considering using the stick signal as input to a PID controller that does the actual gun rotation, but would like to know whether that's an appropriate solution for this application.


balancing a building game I'm working on a building game (the usual, build house X to produce resource A, which then lets you build house Y...) and I am now in the stage of balancing the various resource needs and productions. Since I'm by far not the first person doing this, but couldn't find much practical advise on how to actually do it, I'm asking around How to do the balancing math? I thought about using a spreadsheet, but the main issue is not in the pure numbers but in the dependencies if A then B. How many X are needed for Y to become available and does that fit to the stage of the game I want it to happen? Which better ways than just playing for hours and tweaking the numbers exist? What approaches do you use to balance your economics games? Additional details The game is a static build your village game. "static" means that time is not a factor buildings provide a fixed amount of resources, not "x per minute". So a house provides housing for some peasants and a farm needs some peasants to work it, providing food. So the things to balance against each other are resources. One trivial example Farms need to provide more food than the peasants working on the farm plus the lumberjacks required to provide the wood for building the farm eat. The goal of the game is resource optimization. Doing the most with the resources available on the map. It is closer to a puzzle than to a clicker game. Trivial early game elements (see farm example) are easy to balance. But once you get into dependency trees (e.g. a 3rd level house needs A and B which are provided by X and Y, who need resources created at X2 and Y2, etc.) my intuition fails. Is X2 and Y2 balanced correctly or should they produce less? more? I am not looking for specific answers, but for methods to approach this problem in general.


Developing an ELO like point system for a multiplayer gaming site I'm currently working on a gaming site where users will submit virtual players for different games, like Chess, Nash, Backgammon, Go, etc. The idea is that users don't compete themselves, but through their virtual players. There will be leagues, tournaments, and other competition formats. The question is which would be a good rating system for users in this environment. Take into account that every user may have many different virtual players playing in many different games. As a general guideline I would like to guarantee the following properties Users who have a lot of mediocre players should not score higher than users with a few very good players. A user with a high rating should not be penalized if he adds a new bad player, until he has had enough time to improve his player. Users who don't play often should not score higher than users who play every day. Thanks in advance.