Is it NOT feasible to create a web based game which provides cash prizes due to bots? Say you want to build an online web based game of (say) Hangman where the person who continues to win eventually wins a cash prize. The more players that enter the game the more the eventual winner wins. However, it is clear these days, that any game which has cash prizes will attract the bot writers. I would assume that even a game like Hangman would be a trivial matter for an experienced bot writer to create a bot which would provide a significant edge over a human player. Based on this fact that any online game could provide a bot writer with a advantage over human players, my question is is it possible to create a online game which provides cash prizes which a bot writer would have no significant advantage over human players? Or is it simply that bots are too powerful and pervasive now in gaming and a real money transaction game is not feasible?


How can I know how difficult a question is? I'm making a "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" style of game. I'm really stuck at the part where I should arrange questions from easy to hard. Isn't this subjective? How can I tell how hard difficult a question is?


Score vs. Kills in a casual game I am making a simple phone game and having a conceptual argument with my partner. The argument might end up being inconsequential, but I would like to hear some opinions from actual devs who are making games. This will be a pretty standard beat em up style game where you beat up lots of easy enemies and build up a huge kill count. There will be many different types of enemies. The question emerged when we had to put up some display on the UI. Should the kill count be represented as a 1 1 number? For example, on your HUD, it will constantly show Kills 15 or Defeated 31 Or, should it be represented by a score? For example 1 enemy 100 points and it will display something like this Score 1200 This may be a matter of taste in the end. But, for the casual games market, what do you think a mainstream audience will enjoy more? I think people love big numbers, in general, what do you guys think?


If an AI is sure it is going to lose, what can it do to make the game fun for the player? For context, I am contributing to a sequential turn based strategy game. I have an idea how to improve it but I feel I need some input to help me evaluate and improve it. We currently have a really dumb AI that just follows a rough set of rules each turn. I'm considering to upgrade it to a basic search based AI to not be guaranteed to win every time I play it. There are many reason why an AI could be behind the curve. These include that is wasn't able to grow its economy well due to bad luck with map generation, that its economy was disrupted early by an enemy raid while the defending army was out of reach, that the starter army was defeated early and resources had to be invested to replace it instead of economic upgrades or more importantly there being a big awesome deciding battle with all units involved and it lost. A search based AI will be able to know when it is obvious that it is growing slower than it should, can't recover and it is now impossible to win due to runaway success. Such a runaway success is often boring to play especially if it happened 3 times in a row. Assume there is no meta game where multiple players can gang up on the strongest one. I am open to nudge the game rules in the AI's favor if this happens. However rubber banding can give the player the impression that they are punished for playing well, the AI drags out a game into an almost stalemate or even wins unfairly. The problem I'm trying to solve is not that the AI is losing but that the AI rolling over and dying is not fun or interesting. It is even worse. If the player is sufficiently good he will experience that every time. In some theories of literature, after the conclusion seems forgone and the tension is falling a new small conflict that is relevant enough or something else that justifies further elaboration and excitement. My idea is to have a library of endgame scenarios, a handful of which end up with player loosing unless he plays really well, most pose a small challenge that the player is entirely able to deal with and some are a quot I roll over, just kill me already, please quot . Are you aware of anyone trying something like this before? If someone tried this in a strategy game or even outside of strategy games before I would like to learn from them. Can you spot some obvious problems with this idea? I already considered the AI misjudging the impossibility of winning. However, I might be to enamored with my idea to spot different problems. How can I make sure that this still feels fair? It is easy for the AI to get some extra resources however if a player is losing I am afraid that he would feel cheapened if he got some extra money and units. How do I help the player having fun or at least variety when they are losing? I really have no ideas for this.


Implementing cheat safe loot algorithm at clientside I am developing a "city building" type of browser based flash flex game. I was checking some of the implementation of existing one of the popular games in facebook using decompilers. I noticed they have implemented the loot algorithm the client side and sending the loot item to the server which I think is not cheat safe. Knowing the fact that there are cheaters every where and it is easy to manipulate the messages and send the best loot always, is there any way we can counter this type of cheats? I dont have a concrete solution designed for it yet but I am thinking to track the drops by maintaining the loot history. So instead of mere updating the resources inventory, I will implement a logic which will compare the loot with history to see if the player is receiving the rare drops excessively and flag the user or take a smart decision (which I don't have yet) Or Is it a good idea to implement the loot algorithm in the server side? Since this is "city building" kind of game, where it will not have extensive user actions like in typical RPG games which can trigger loot events.


What makes Minecraft so great? I believe everybody has heard of Minecraft. It is a deceptively simple game, that was made by a single indie developer, and sold more than 500k copies despite having no active marketing and being technically a buggy alpha version. That is really great success for an indie game. And I think we can all learn much from it. So I want to examine Minecraft's game design what, in your opinion, makes it so great? What choices work well, how they combine together to make a great game? And what design decision are bad (I don't think everything is ideal in Minecraft) What do you think?


How do I structure a 2D platform level? I'm doing a 2D platformer but I don't know how they are usually built. The approach I'm looking at is making it tilebased, with ground tiles on bottom row, then platforms on some places in "mid air" within the array. Then some physics to add gravity to pull the player down if airborn, and just scroll the map horizontally and check for collisions. Am I on the right track? Thank you.


Newbie game programmer Where do I start? Okay, so I have been really inclined towards game programming this past few weeks. I have primarily been a web programmer and know a fair number of lanugages like PHP, Java, javascript, python, etc. I also know a little bit of C as I heard that it's used heavily in the game industry. I have no experience in game development, but I am a fast learner.(I am 15 so I guess I still have a lot of time.) So, is there any language I should learn to develop 2d and 3d games? Also which IDE(free) is a nice place to start compiling your ideas(something like Polycode http polycode.org ). I looked up Polycode but it was a little confusing for me to build it. I have a fair idea about what DirectX, OpenGL, SDL and shaders are but I have absolutely no clue about programming them. I know it's a little early to start jumping into this stuff already but you gotta start somewhere right? Please help me as I really want to get into serious game programming. Thanks! I am running Windows 8 Pro 32 bit. Please suggest me any software accordingly!


Player fatigue for tablets? I'm thinking about making games for tablets. Coming from a PC console background, I'm keenly aware of the huge differences in the user interfaces, and that I need to design it with the target platform in mind. One aspect I'm worried about is player fatigue. The input devices used on PCs and consoles keyboards and game controllers are optimized for extended play and have mature, ergonomic designs. Most seasoned players can easily use them for an hour, clocking in thousands of key button presses, without suffering from fatigue. Designers can depend on this when designing the user experience, with consequences ranging from size length of levels, steps required to execute commands, pace of the game and many more. What about touch screen tablets? Do players become fatigued faster, or are unable to execute as many taps swipes per unit of time? If so, are there any resources or guidelines about this matter?


How to evaluate a user against optimal performance? I have trouble coming up with a system of assigning a rating to player's performance. Well, technically there is is a trivial rating system, but I don't like it because it would mean assigning negative scores, which I think most players will be discouraged by. The problem is that I only know the ideal number of actions to get the desired result. The worst case is infinite number of actions, so there is no obvious scale. The trivial way I referred to above is to take score ( optimal moves players moves), with ideal score being zero. However, psychologically people like big numbers. No one wants to win by getting a mark of 0. I wonder if there is a system that someone else has come up with before to solve this problem? Essentially I wish to score the players based on How close they've come to the ideal solution. Different challenges will have different optimal number of actions, so the scoring system needs to take that into account, e.g. Challenge 1 max 10 points, Challenge 2 max 20 points. I don't mind giving the players negative scores if they've performed exceptionally badly, I just don't want all scores to be lt 0


How do I implement a programming system in my game that is both accessible, powerful, and fast to code in? I'm currently working on a space based sandbox game which will heavily feature the ability to custom program your systems. I want to implement this in a way that is both accessible, powerful (bare minimum would be turing completeness) fast to code in. Text based languages generally only satisfy the latter two requirements, and while it's not to difficult to design a visual language which satisfies the first two, visual languages are a pain to program in due to requiring extensive mouse use. While there are some very accessible text based languages, I want complete non programmers to be able to ease themselves into programming.


How do I discourage "loot from party members who are about to leave" behavior? In my RPG, I have companion characters that can potentially leave the party. A behavior I have witnessed among testers is something that I think many RPGs deal with, namely that players will strip the party members of all equipment before they leave the party. For instance One tester removed all gear from a companion, then talked to them and chose the "I want you to leave" dialogue option. Another tester saw that a companion was removed from the party via a scripted event, then loaded to an earlier save, stripped the gear from the companion, then re played the scripted event. I want to avoid this behavior because it encourages meta gaming save scumming and breaks immersion. If this were a real life group of medieval adventurers, one of the group members wouldn't be ordered to strip down to their underwear moments before being ambushed and captured. I don't want gear to be "stuck" on a character so that it can never be upgraded (I once played an RPG where I was frustrated that my companion had mediocre armor, but I wasn't permitted to swap it for superior armor I found later). Is there any way that I can get the best of both worlds by allowing character equipment to be improved, while preventing (or at least limiting the incentive) to meta game save scum and loot characters who are about to leave?


How do I simplify a 2D game grid for level management while keeping its by pixel features? (I cross posted this from StackOverflow as this seems to be a more appropriate f o r u m community. I've looked around a little here and I did not find an answer, so I hope this is not a recurring question.) This is a question dealing with 2D world design. I am playing around by creating a 2D bird's eye view shooter game, and I am looking to make the game sleek and advanced. I hope to be able to write physics so projectiles have momentum and knock down properties. I am immediately running into the problem of world design. I need a way to have level files that store everything there is about a game. This is easiest by just having a grid of objects. But there are thin walls and other objects that don't seem to fit into a traditional cell of a grid. I want to be able to fit all these together so I can streamline level design so I don't have to put in the exact pixel specific start and end of a wall. There doesn't seem to be an obvious translation from level file to game without forcing myself into a pacman life scenario, meaning a scenario where the game feels boxy and discrete. There is a contrast between the smoothly (relatively) moving characters and finite jumps in a grid. I would appreciate an answer that would describe implementation options or point me to resources that do. I would also appreciate references to sites that teach game design. The language I am using is Java (although I would love to use C or C , but I can never find convenient resources in those languages). Thank you for any answers. Please leave any questions in the space below I will be able to answer them later tonight (28th Nov). Answering Questions I will definitely consider using a game engine I wanted to write a lot of it myself, but I am rethinking gradually. Perhaps there is no answer to this question that I will "like", and the process is just inherently a bit tedious. I meant to find a way to easily specify things like "wall goes here" without saying "add wall at 293, 195 with width 123 and height 5". This of course, is easy by dividing the game world into a grid. But dividing a gameworld into a grid is not ideal, because it has to deal with things like objects taking up more than one grid, objects being irregularly shaped and taking up only part of the grid, etc.. I've had more time to think about this, and I think that there is no way to "gridify" my world without losing some major functionality, and so I think I will have to create a world editor, where I can more easily create levels. I still foresee problems though, specifically with AI. I need to have pathfinding capabilities, and so the algorithms naturally have some sort of search space reduction, which is essentially making a grid. I will have to read more about this. Until then I would still appreciate answers and suggestions on this design choice. I hope this clarifies my question if it does not, please direct a question and I can try to answer it. (Storing object locations is the only practical way to do any of this, I now realize).


Software for game system design overview Yes so this is a question more oriented towards the planning project part of game development. What software do you use to plan your game, I am talking about visual stuff like a mindmap application for making some neat diagrams and so on, sort of like database design only it's for the game instead, is there any good ones? Thanks


How do I get rights to an game? I' looking to get rights to an game called Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS. I am a Nintendo 3DS Developer trying to make a remastered version for the Nintendo 3DS. How would I go about getting the rights for the game. Do I get the rights from Rockstar, Nintendo, or another party. I'm not sure.


most flexible way to implement a buff debuff system for a RPG game I'm making an RGP board game where I have different heros, each one of them belongs to some types for example ("Aatrox" is a Dragon and a Ninja hence he belong to these two types),and each player has a list of champion with fixed attirubtes like basicAttackDamage,criticalstrike chance ability..etc and i have what are called as buffs, a buff gets activated to player when his some of his heros belong to certain types eg if a player gets two Dragons or more , then every hero whose type is Dragon gets double Damage Attack, TrueDamage(Ignore magic resist and armor), Attack..etc so i was wondering what would be the most flexible way to implement these sort of buffs considering the fact that each champion could only use his attack ability once in each round and there are buffs that gets added with a certain chance "this buffs gives the hero 40 chance to stun the enemy with basic attack, and buffs which add health to heros ("this buffs give the hero 250 extra health") etc.. my current approach is to add tags on buffs and apply these buffs when attacking or defending an attack so this would look something like enum BuffsType OnHit,OnAttack but this approach kinda fails at complex buffs like "a chance to hit extra attack extra enemy ". I have seen some discussions about this but none of the answers seemed to be REALLY flexible, most of them failed at complex buffs design patterns software design


Some theory questions about classic endless arcade games I had read in the book "A theory of fun for game design" that once the player realizes that he cannot overpower the computer in anyway (or) the AI is unbeatable (badly designed coded) he will leave the game and not try to beat it. But looking at new age games like "Jetpack Joyride" I think this rule is not true for everyone anymore. Not sure if this is a deliberate choice or just bad design. I want to know if there exists any history about how the old classic ATARI Arcade machines games were implemented tested. Best example would be Pac man Asteroids etc. I am hoping that those game makers didn't just increment the speed of the enemies blindly with the level number. They must have tested it enough to ensure that the game can actually beaten up to very high levels and might have tweaked the required parameters to ensure it in their code. Are there articles tutorials about designing endless arcade games? I have been searching a lot but couldn't find any.


2D Animated Tile rendering The current game I've been working on needs to have animated tiles. I have a code for Tile and TileMap from my previous game that I recycled. However, it does not support tile animations. The tile animations are independent from each other. Now, I have an Animation class for my sprites that looks like this (parts are ommited abstracted) function Animation(spriteatlas, frames, animationDelay) this.spriteAtlas spriteatlas this.frames frames array of number of frames this.animationDelay animationDelay array of delays this.currentAnimationIndex 0 this.currentFrame 0 this.delayCounter 0 Animation.prototype.startAnimation function(index) this.currentFrame 0 this.delayCounter this.animationDelay index Animation.prototype.update function() this.delayCounter if(this.delayCounter 0) this.currentFrame if(this.currentFrame this.frames i ) this.currentFrame 0 Animation.prototype.render function(ctx) Render the appropriate sprite The actual Animation class has much more packed into it, since it is a generic animation. I can just add an instance of the Animation in every tile, but I think it is inefficient and or wasteful. Moreover, not all tiles are animated. One may argue that, yeah, it just costs a little memory since this is just a small game. But I do want to know and learn about more efficient ways so I can use them in my next bigger projects. What are the techniques I can use?


Successful Elements to a 4X Game 4X games (That is, Xpand, Xplore, Xploit and Xterminate) like Civilization, Sins of a Solar Empire, and other top Strategy games, all seem to have the same addictive hook. I'd like to know what elements these developers incorporate into their games to make them Well paced (You can't beat the game in 5 minutes, but it wont take a week) Replayable (The first game isn't your last) Competetive (The AI doesn't play like a 3 year old) Not repetetive (Such as using the same strategy over and over, or spamming units) Economical (Not having 7 trillion metal and coins after 10 minutes of play) Not to much micro managing Exciting (Necessary?) combat You stil need to use strategy Intuitive interfaces (Civilization 5 is a good example) And any other important parts to the Strategy 4X genre Some of these seem pretty simple, but others look like balancing acts, and I'd like to have some opinions on how to make a game that is fun to play. I'd be grateful if anyone could answer tell me how you or another game developer has managed to successfully balance them together.


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 many levels should I make? One issue I grapple with across many of my games is trying to decide how many levels to put in my game. This is across genres and platforms. In general, constraints that may decide although they are not applicable in my case can include Pre determined schedule or release dates Fixed budget The game's story finishes concludes (PCG games) difficulty becomes "impossible" These are all great, but not sufficiently constraining as to tell me how many levels to make. Another constraint that sounds good in theory but is hard to implement is game time for example, Mario or Super Meat Boy, I can guesstimate x minutes per level, and target y minutes of intended total gameplay, yielding y x levels. But none of these seem quite right to me. It seems like there should be a better way to decide when to add more levels and when to stop.


How to start encouraging team collaboration? I am working on converting a single player game to multiplayer, but I am concerned that if I simply do a 1 1 conversion, even in modes with "multiple players" there won't be any incentive for team work. And since I have more experience with single player mechanics than multiplayer ones, I could use some advice on this. Here is what I have implemented so far points that reward team based achievements higher than single player achievements eg. single kill vs team kill a "spotting" mechanic which allows players to show their team the enemy's position on the minimap health amp ammo items which can be shared to resupply the team team based game modes such as capture the flag, TDM etc My main concern with the above, is that there is a heavy reliance on individual players to want to play in a team based way. If they don't want to, they can still lone wolf it in most cases which can have a negative effect on the rest of the team who is trying to play collaboratively. It only takes one person in a team to spoil the fun! For example, the COD series has had a number of perks, achievements and streaks designed to encourage team collaboration but I have rarely seen these used in multiplayer since a lone wolf strategy seems to be more common. Another example, the Battlefield series has had an entire class devoted to supporting team members with health packs, repairs, ammo resupplies etc and in multiplayer it is common to see this being used to fully effect. So why do such features mechanics work in one game of the same genre but not in another? I assume the type of player is relevant here, but there must be more to it than that. What are some tried and true ways to encourage team based play or collaboration? This does not necessarily mean players talking to each other, but rather working together to achieve the same goal or different parts of the same goal.


UI Main Menu options for mobile games. What options should be listed? What do users want to see? When a user arrives at your main menu on your mobile touch phone game. What do you want them to see? What do they need to see? Start, About, Load, Leaderboards, and Settings are just a few of the options that I "could" put on the Main Menu. The question really is what "should" be there and why? My game is about surviving waves of enemies to get to the next level, with a twist of course. What options could should be shown on my Main Menu and why? EDIT UPDATE Easy recognizable PLAY button. Possible buttons include, but are not limited to Options, Stats Achievements, Leaderboards, Level Solutions, and Promote Game. Choose appropriate options for your type of game. (ie. Level Solutions good for puzzle games but not FPS) Less is more, don't clutter the Main Menu to prevent users from getting confused. Weigh the benefits of an additional button against the risks of confusing users. Symbols can be used to convey the meaning of a button, be sure to reach the largest audience possible. Have as few clicks as possible to get into the game.


How can I make backtracking interesting? When a player navigates a space for the first time, it is very interesting the content is new, the dangers are unknown, paths need to be found. However, various situations force the player to backtrack, or navigate the same space multiple times. Perhaps the level designers are being economical, or trying to build familiarity with a space. Perhaps the game itself is open ended, or like a sandbox, where navigating the same spaces is part of the game itself. These can make the same spaces seem tedious and sparse. Given that backtracking (or navigating the same space multiple times) is unavoidable, what are some effective, economical ways of making it interesting? Please keep in mind We are reusing levels deliberately, either for effect or to save on cost. Therefore modifying the levels beyond recognition would be against our intent. We also cannot modify the gameplay too much if we were attempting to save cost by reusing levels, incurring more costs by adding gameplay would be counterproductive. One quick fix I had in mind was to give the player some sort of powerup or vehicle so that they could backtrack faster. I'm sure there are better methods, and examples of games where they were used.


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.


What is the line between a serious game and an application with points? Gamification has become a buzz word lately and is being applied to everything from applications to meetings. In many cases it is being done as an afterthought and sort of game washing. What are the key differences between something having real game dynamics and simply being a superficial gamification layer? Where is the line between a serious game and an application with points?


Random Procedural vs. Previously Made Level Generation What the advantages disadvantages of using random procedural generation vs. pre made levels? There seems to be few that I can think of, other than the fact that items may be a problem to distribute in randomly generated terrain, and that the generated terrain may look weird. The downside to previously made levels is that I would need to make a level editor, though. I cannot decide what is better to use. Could answers include code examples of both procedural and premade generation, as well as the pros cons?


Resolving Diplomatic actions in a RISK style board game I'm working on a board game called Farlanthia Lords of War. And I need some help with resolving diplomacy during play. My original idea was to have Diplomacy be a form of "attack" like in RISK. This would force another player to perform an action (like a trade, or peace treaty, etc.) The idea is that each "season" you would send a diplomat to court, and politics would play out. Sometimes things go your way, sometimes they don't. This would allow me to use modifier cards (say, you have as prisoner a general from the other player, this would give you 2 in diplomacy with them). However, as was pointed out on BoardGameGeek this isn't optimal for everyone. So I'm considering adding in a voluntary portion where if both parties agree to the treaty at hand, it goes into place without die rolling. Thoughts? I'm just not sure how to arbitrate the rules of diplomacy during an otherwise concrete game if the diplomatic actions aren't just as concrete. Thanks, (Cross posted to Board and Card Games)


Taking Physics into account for AI Planning What I've seen in most Game Engines and game engine design is that the Physics Engine is the be all end all system. Basically, AI for example may want to travel to some position, but it simply sends that request (velocity, direction) to the Physics Engine. If the AI really gets to that position is up to the will of the Physics Engine. Is there some Design or Physics Engine which will let you plan out how Physics will react? Before it will actually occur? Take for example that you can do Motion Planning by the AI to nearly eliminate foot sliding. images from aigamedev.com Motion Planning for Fun and Profit!


What other online descriptions exist for specific game engines 8 bit and 16 bit game engines? I found a good description of the engine in the Sonic games. It describes roughly how the engine works for people writing their own clones. In my case, I am simply interested in getting a general view of how the many 8 bit and 16 bit game engines worked on their respective consoles. What other online descriptions exist for specific game engines 8 bit and 16 bit game engines?


The meaning of colours in other cultures According to http www.color wheel pro.com color meaning.html and many other western websites certain colours have meanings. To summarise the meaning of colours in the context of a typical RTS game red danger or enemy gold wealth or high quality yellow energy green healing aqua protection blue power pink romance white grey neutral territory black mystery (There are many more meanings that I deliberately left out as it is not applicable to games) However this information was collected from western websites. If I have to design a game that needs to be played internationally, would it make sense to go with the above "colour rules" or could I expect that other cultures like the Eastern or African cultures could have a significant different association with colours than the Western cultures? If so, would it make sense to not only translate the text of a game for a foreign culture, but also translate the colours too?


Is my skill tree possible, balanced, or even a good idea? Like most people, I have an idea for a game. I have a particular concept I want to create with a particular set of mechanics I want to implement. What I need help with is the underlaying player statistics, how they effect what the player can do, and how I can enable a player endless expansion down a particular path that improves only a small sub set of those statistics. The entire game will be turn based. The concept is to explore and learn about the world you're in. Books, scripts, notes on napkins will lead you to secrets and dungeons. There are no quests to do this for you. You have to read, study and venture forth. The base stats will decide how effective you are in combat as well as other areas of exploration and general existence in the world. It could be important to mention that combat in my system isn't realtime or even in the control of the player. The player decides to enter a dangerous area of the map and the computer decides if they get into combat. The computer also rolls some dice and applies modifiers based stats, and finally decides who is the winner. You may die, you may be able to flee. I haven't decided yet. At this moment in time, I'm considering the following (classic) player stats Strength Stamina Intelligence Wisdom Agility Intuition I'm considering the following three class types Combat Magic Stealth Class types have two base statistics behind them Combat Strength and Stamina Magic Intelligence and Wisdom Stealth Agility and Intuition Somewhat obvious, I guess. Moving further into the mechanics, I had the following progression system in mind Levels 1 50 are about learning the game and its mechanics Advancing to level 50 is fast and is also the cap After level 50, you gain Guild Wars 2 style "Mastery" points which allow you to enhance specialisations The end game is about horizontal progression and mastering your class type, but more importantly, it's about lore and finding it The idea behind Specialisations is you invest Mastery into them and they force your character down a particular path combat, magic, or stealth. They also lock you out of the other paths, so you can't mix and match. You have to think about what it is you want to do and whether you can do it based on your understanding of the area you're going into. The idea behind locking a player down a particular path (which can be unlocked and reassigned, but with research, effort and work) is I want to make it difficult for players to simply construct a "super character" that can take on everything and everyone. Think about how easy it is to become a super mage in Skyrim that can blow everything up... boring! I want a world in which a very powerful mage is useless against certain monsters simply because of the magic resistance and shear strength that monster has it forces the player to respec' and rethink before walking into any situation. To summarise, my thoughts so far are Base stats effect everything the player does Equipment can effect the base stats as well as potions and the other classic stuff Specialisations effect only two stats and lock out other specialisations Mastery points go on and on, but the "leveling" curve gets harder and harder quit quickly Mastery and leveling up a particular specialisation enables the player enter new parts of the world (which is massive, by the way) and continue exploring, but not without first researching what's there (and respeccing as a result) Am I looking at a dead end here, or is this possible? I'm brand new to game development and really enjoy the mechanics behind games. Am I describing a classic setup here, perhaps? Or something close to one? I would welcome and greatly appreciate all feedback. I'd even welcome a preexisting system I can copy paste into my world and just use ) Thanks again. EDIT Thanks for the great replies and questions. I think I'm getting this a bit backwards and will, instead, focus on my location and movment, then overlay combat when the time comes )


Keeping balance between widely different character classes So I've been theory crafting an idea for a game I think would be interesting, but I'm trying to work out the kinks in my idea. Here's my dilemma Let's say a player can choose between two classes, being a foot soldier or piloting a large vehicle like a tank. To keep gameplay diverse, there needs to be some players as foot soldiers and some as tanks. In games such as BF4, the individual soldier has so many anti vehicle weapons that vehicles are actually somewhat weak. Is there a good way to balance classes such that an endgame infantry unit is equal(not inferior or superior) to a vehicle such as a tank or ship? I was also thinking of an AI squad mechanic, where the player can command a small number of AI foot soldiers, so this might be worked into the balancing. I'm just trying to think of a way to have all classes be appealing to the player.


Must I display Health and Mana to the player? I'm thinking of doing one or more of the following hiding the player's Health hiding the player's Mana hiding the player's Health from other players hiding the player's Mana from other players I don't know of any game that has done such things before so I'm wondering if this will have a positive effect on the players and why no game has done so before.


Do you fill all your game data in huge excel tables? Are there any better method? I really want to know how many game designers prefer to work with a huge table for all items, another table for all skills, and even another table for all mobs in a MMORPG. And these tables may grow to several hundred MBs with thousand records, but most records only use a few fields in a table. I know some game designer works in this way. Are there any better method?


How can I design loot to be enjoyable to acquire and neither a chore nor frustrating? I am currently working on an ARPG and I am trying to figure out which elements of the game influence each other and one example is that endgame activities inherently influence loot drops handling and the other way round. The more classical loot systems we usually get in touch with are following Classic MMORPG loot where enemy bodies have to be clicked which open up a window which displays the loot that can be clicked one item at a time. Sometimes it is possible to enable auto loot in order to skip the clicking of each item. ARPG loot where slain enemies die in a explosion of loot which can occasionally get extreme up to a point where loot filters are necessary otherwise the screen will be cluttered. In this case players usually pick up uncapped currency like gold automatically while everything else from gear to crafting parts has to be looted manually if the player so desires. Diablo, Path of Exile and the likes to handle it with cliackable labels on screen while Borderlands for example spreads the loot all around the place and has visual light beams indicating rarities that allows players to filter quickly and go grab the items they might be interested in. "Loot chests" is what I call the system of Destiny. During a strike or adventure players do participate in combat and are not distracted by random loot on the ground which would require consideration as to whether picking it up is a good choice. After the event has ended, typically after defeating the final boss a chest appears that contains loot. "Vacuum loot" which was used for Guild Wars 2 and Wildstar where the loot physically drops on the ground and players can loot everything from currencies to gear with one click of a button. In an ARPG this would never work out since inventory space is even more restricted than anything else. My naive first thoughts are based on how the endgame of Diablo 3 is designed. In classic endgame rifts players can slay enemies and are usually busy picking up materials and some "useless" items that may be used to disassemble them for even more materials. Furthermore they are looking for chests and hoping for some random drops. In contrast to that game mode there are greater rifts which, similiar to Destiny, drop no loot at all except when you kill the final boss that appears after progressing far enough. In greater rifts there are no distractions just the challenge to finish those at higher difficulties and farming them with specific speed builds while on the other hand the classic rift slow down gameplay when you have to stop every few meters just to click and pick up those items. I have reached an impasse since I understand players might want to blaze through content and I don't want to make them slow down constantly (with a system like classic rifts in Diablo or Path of Exile in general) but when I stick to "loot chests" at the end of an activity it might happen that less loot drops in general and that there is less gratification when collecting things since the is nothing on the way. Take a long dungeon for example, a "loot chest" system might incentivize just skipping all enemies and do the bare minimum to tackle the final boss. In such a scenario I basically invalidated almost the entire content I am presenting! Comparing this to (current) legendary items in WoW if one legendary drops I might be relieved to finally get one (and be angry about it since it's a shitty one...) but I missed the reward stimulus up to the drop itself. Applied to my scenario, the player sees a dungeon as an annoying chore to finally get the chance of acquiring something. If the drops are not satisfying it could possibly be more demotivating thinking that that only chance to get something after such a chore was a waste of time. So my question is the following Even though loot explosions may be enojoyable at first they can degenerate into an annoyance (e.g. clicking a bazillion items on the floor). When thinking about making them less boring I end up with something that can be as frustrating in the end. How can I balance this?


What Game mechanic can I implement to give players incentive to finish a race? I am essentially making deathrace the game. How do I give players incentive to finish or participate in the race instead of strictly deathmatching on the race track. Edit More Detail General Race Rules Death during the race knocks you out of the race Weapons and defensive tools are picked by player at the start of the race where they are limited by the amount of "space" on the weapon and defensive system Using a weapon increases the heat of the weapon system. certain weapons within a cars weapon system can only be used if the weapon systems temperature is below a certain threshold Defensive systems are power based, where certain defensive tools can only be used if a cars power if above a certain threshold Killing other players is fun but not required to win the race Finishing the race or completing a lap or making progress around the track grants X Where X is something I can't make appealing enough to dissuade player from just deathmatching on the race track.


Time reverse mechanism in games I am wondering about how time manipulation mechanisms in games are typically designed. I am particularly interested in time reversing (sort of like in the latest SSX or Prince of Persia). The game is a 2D top down shooter. The mechanism I am trying to design implement has the following requirements 1) Actions of entities apart from the player character are completely deterministic. The action an entity takes is based on the frames progressed since level start and or the position of the player on the screen Entities are spawned at set time during the level. 2) Time reverse works by reversing back in realtime. Player actions are also reversed, it replays in reverse what the player performed. Player has no control during reverse time. There is no limit on the time spent reversing, we can reverse all the way to the beginning of the level if wanted. As an example Frames 0 50 Player moves foward 20 units over this time Enemy 1 spawns at frame 20 Enemy 1 moves left 10 units during frame 30 40 Player shoots bullet at frame 45 Bullet travels 5 foward (45 50) and kills Enemy 1 at frame 50 Reversing this would play back in realtime Player moves backwards 20 units during this time Enemy 1 revives at frame 50 Bullet reappears at frame 50 Bullet moves backwards 5 and disappears (50 45) Enemy moves left 10 (40 30) Enemy removed at frame 20. Just looking at movement I had some ideas about how to achieve this, I thought of having a interface that changed behavior for when time was advancing or reversing. Instead of doing something like this void update() movement new Vector(0,5) I would do something like this public interface movement() public void move(Vector v, Entity e) public class advance() implements movement public void move(Vector v, Entity e) e.location v public class reverse() implements movement public void move(Vector v, Entity e) e.location v public void update() moveLogic.move(new vector(5,0)) However I realised this would not be optimal performance wise and would quickly become complicated for more advance actions (such as smooth movement along curved paths e.t.c.).


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.


Stat Multipliers from Base Value or Iterative I'm aware similar questions have been asked before but this time I'm asking about a specific issue with the maths of stat modifiers. I have a stat system that applies a list of modifiers to a stat, modifiers can either shift of scale a stat. Shifting is easy, you either add or remove a set value, scaling involves multiplying that value by a factor. What I'm struggling to work out is the best way to multiply. The simple method is to let each scaling modifier simply stack, e.g. if we have 2 modifiers x1.5 and x2 to a stat of 1 we get Stacked (1 1.5) 2 3 The alternative is to have each modifier apply to the base number and then be added, soas with the previous example we get a situation where we workout how much the base is multiplied by and then remove the base to get the new addition From Base 1 ((1 1.5) 1) (1 2) 1) 2.5 In this way each modifier acts on the base value so that you can guaranty a 50 increase in a stat won't cause a ridiculous increase and that a modifier isn't affected by the order that it's applied in. Mainly it's this ordering I'm worried about, this becomes evident when you add shifting, e.g. we have 3 modifiers 1, x1.5 and x2, with the first method Stacked ((1 1) 1.5) 2 6 Where as with the second method From Base (1 1) ((1 1.5) 1) ((1 2) 1) 3.5 It doesn't take too much to see that in the stacked method if the shift addition were applied after the multipliers it would not result in the same value. How do other games approach this problem? What is the best decision to make here?


What is "game state?" The terminology "game state" is a bit vague to me. Could anybody clarify what is included in the game state, please? Is it a state of all the variables and objects within the game at particular moment?


Does concurrency inherently introduce "randomness" into a game? When a game is implemented with concurrency (as most games are), does this necessarily, by its very nature, introduce an element of randomness into the game that is outside of the players' control? Note that when I use the word "random", I'm not meaning to launch into a philosophical debate about the deterministic nature of the system. I understand that concurrency is deterministic in the sense that the operating system decides which processes to allow time on the CPU and in what order (or the JVM controls which Thread's turn it is to execute, etc). But my understanding of this is that there is no way to control or predict whether one thread's next command will execute before or after another. The reason I'm asking is because this seems like a fundamental difficulty for game development where a game is supposedly designed around a player's skill. Consider a game like League of Legends. Assume that two players are battling it out. It's a very close contest between the two and it's coming down to the wire so much so that whoever gets their last attack off will be the one to kill the other and win the game for their team. If the players are implemented using concurrency and the situation really was like this, is it essentially out of the players' hands at this point? Is the outcome of this match all up to whatever system is arbitrarily deciding which player's thread process will execute next? If not, what am I misunderstanding about concurrency? If so, is there any way around this problem so that a game of skill can always be a game of skill, especially in those most crucial moments?


How to create a user friendly magic spell system? I'm designing a small 2D top down open world survival ish game with a magic spell system. The way it works so far The player receives a "wand" at the beginning of the game As the player encounters new items and enemies, they gain spells to help them use those items defeat those enemies The problem I'm having is designing a way to cast the spells. At first, I just bound different spells to keys 0 10, but very soon the number of spells overwhelmed it, and you also have the problem of lower level spells not being used in the late game but still being bound to the most useful keys. So, what's the best way to make a user friendly spellcasting system? I can overhaul the way magic works in my game if needed. EDIT Just to clarify, I'm developing for PC in real time with large variation in spell type and purpose, although this question should apply to all platforms.


Point system that is not competitive or has a clear goal I'm making a game in which the goal is to reach as much entries as possible and I want the player to see that he is making progress somehow. However the game shouldn't be of competitive nature (it co operative), so I feel that points might not be the right measure. I thought instead of a progress bar, so you work towards a goal of entries. However the problem with this is that there isn't a specific number of entries the user should aim for The more, the better. Is there a way of showing progress without assuming there is an end and without it getting competitive?


Future of Julia in game development industry I read in many posts that Julia is faster than many languages especially C , What's the future of Julia in game development industry ? Will it replace all legacy C ?


Ways to improve player retention I've recently released my first free to play game on Android and I've spent a few on advertising to try and get players involved and see what happens. Below are my retention stats courtesy of Google. Judging by the colour coding 50 is good lt 30 is not so good, but in reality I have no real idea what these numbers should look like. So this question has two parts really. What are ok good numbers for Days 1, 2, 7 and 30? So I know what I should be targeting, and what are good ways to increase my numbers to get the to that level. There are the obvious things such as notifications, but what are the less obvious strategies that a novice is unlikely to think of?


How can I prepare the different difficulty levels for my game? I've though about creating the game for the easiest difficulty level, and from there scale up and create the other, more difficult difficulty levels, but I'm not sure it's the fastest way to go. How should I create the different difficulty levels for my game?


How can I position a sprite in the same spot across different screen sizes? Taking into account the multitude of screen sizes and resolutions, is there a way I can position a sprite so it's at roughly the same spot on every iOS device? Doesn't matter if you are using SpriteKit or Cocos2D or just using UIKit. The principle for positioning a sprite is roughly the same.


How to make a fun slot machine? We currently have a simple slot machine in our online virtual world game. You set the amount you want to bet (in virtual money) and pull the lever, and depending on the 3 figures (there's only one line) you get a reward, a free round, lose some more money, or most of the time, get nothing at all. You can instantly pull the lever again. The previous bet will be maintained. At the moment this slot machine isn't really fun to play. The chances of winning something are pretty low (though when you win, you can win a lot). When you pull the lever, the result is determined (though not shown) immediately, so there's also no way influence the outcome of the wheels. How can it be made more fun?


Dealing with disconnected users Just a strange question. I was thinking about it today. About a poker game website apps or any online gaming platform with money being involved. What would be the best way to deals with disconnected users trying to avoid a loss or maybe real disconnection. I doubt pausing the game until that player comes back is very suitable. Any ideas? Suggestions?


How to manage data relationships when designing a crafting system? I'm trying to determine all the items, crafting methods and recipes to put in my game, and the relationships between them. I need a tool that allows me to do this both top down (boat needs sails and planks, sails need fabric which needs weaving technology and thread ...) and bottom up (hit rocks together to make sharp rock, tie it to a stick with thread to make an axe ...). I also need to ensure that all items, crafting methods and recipes conform to some template, which will be dynamic, at least in the development phase. I need the tool to be informative about which items conform to the template and which items do not, as well as what they are missing. Below is an example item Item Oak plank Item family Wood plank Crafting method Sawing Item Oak log And here is an example item template Item Optional item family Mandatory crafting method Choice (Item Item family) So this item conforms but I need a some way to ensure this and highlight if it was missing, for example, the crafting method. I also need to be able to check if an Oak log Item entry is also in the list and well formed according to the schema, and be able to change the schema easily. For example, I could later define an optional quot Ship quot tag in the schema for items that would enforce speed and strength values when used. I will frequently update the templates and I want this to be a low overhead operation. Therefore I've eliminated databases. Due to the cross referencing needs, I've eliminated spreadsheets and now I'm working on writing a tool that uses an xml schema to define the templates and list the items, crafting methods and recipes in an xml file, using xml validation to check conformity. The problem is that the tool is taking too long to write and preventing me to work on the core features of the game. Are there any available tools or workflows for this purpose?


Bejewelled Next Best jewel selection Is there a game design technique I can use so that I completely remove 'No more moves left' situations. ie. the game should contain no impossible scenarios. As far as I've guess It all depends on what jewel and where you give the user after a jewel group of 3 or 4 dissolves. Is it possible ? An always infinitely solvable Bejewelled game?


Stuck on development of turn based strategy game I am developing a turn based political military strategy game similar to the DOS game Conflict. I have my game design document completed, but I'm having trouble actually putting together the logic of the turns. How do I determine the strengths weakness of the various nation states in my game? Is there a common set of mathematical formulas somewhere on the interwebs that I can modify? Or do I need to come up with my own? If I do need to come up with my own, how do I go about doing this? I have very limited experience playing games like Dungeons and Dragons and Settlers of Catan would it be a good idea for me to buy a copy of a board game that is similar to my idea and model my game off that?


In Game Tutorial Decisions I'm working on a game with confusing mechanics such as energy storage and the coolant temperature. What is the best way to get a new player learned quickly? What are the pros and cons of different in game tutorial methods? I was thinking of a tutorial with annotated screenshots, but that makes it sound like a science textbook ("Active towers are towers that consume energy and may generate heat."). Other ways include in game tutorials, which is somewhat difficult to program tips that will show in game and after game over a reduced difficulty without the energy and coolant things


Game window systems and internal frames I don't know if this is a valid question, but What kind of window manager do games use which have internal frames (Frames inside frames)? Does this differ between the programming languages (Are e.g. in Java the AWT Swing libraries used to manage these and other graphical elements, such as buttons,or is this to restrictive (speed, graphical possibilities?)) A special example would be EVE Online, where the client can use the ingame windows like on a normal desktop.


Looking for games in environments similar to a pinball table I'm on a team of students working on a third person adventure game that takes place inside a pinball machine (like, small scale, on the surface, avoiding pinballs, etc). One of my responsibilities on the project is to find games that are similar to this concept in appearance and or gameplay for reference. So, does anyone know of games (other than pinball) that takes place in a pinball like environment? Or, adventure games that take place in small, cramped environments with multiple paths around the world? Or games in which the player is often bombarded with balls (or other similar unintelligent obstacles)? Or games that take place on a small scale?


Are there benefits to stage selections where only the appearance changes (i.e. Street fighter, King of fighters etc.)? I'm not really sure if it's a good value add seeing as it would entail asset generation. The only value I see in it would be for variance but even that would wear thin really quickly. Clarification i.e. Backgrounds that don't add game play related features, just appearance changes.


2D pathfinding finding smooth paths I was trying to implement a simple pathfinding, but the outcome is less satisfactory than what I intended to achieve. The thing is units in games like Starcraft 2 move in all directions whereas units in my case only move in at most 8 directions (Warcraft 1 style) as these 8 directions direct to next available nodes (they move from a tile to next neighboring tile). What should I do in order to achieve the result as in Starcraft 2? Shrink the tile size? On the picture you can see a horizontal line of rock tiles being obstacles, and the found path marked as green tiles. The red line is the path I want to achieve.


If a MMORPG does not have a limit on the number of players, will all players eventually focus on the same server? Consider a WOW like MMORPG game. The only difference between it and WOW is that there is no limit on the number of players (Suppose that there is no limit on hardware performance and network bandwidth). For such a game, developers can still open multiple servers for players to play. My question is Assuming that the game can run steadily over a long period of time, will it eventually lead to the concentration of all players on the same server? Whether the answer is yes or no, is there a corresponding economic, sociological and ecological model behind it? (This may be an open question, I am not sure if I should ask questions here, but there seems to be no better place to ask. I hope that I can get some inspiration through discussion) Thanks.


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...


Scaling web game to suit any screen size I've made a simple multiplayer game, and now trying to make it fit on any screen size. I've tried stretching it out to fit the browser size, but it just appears weird and distorted. I'm also trying to avoid having borders around the edges as it doesn't look particularly nice. Is there a way to solve this that is fair to all players?


How can I design loot to be enjoyable to acquire and neither a chore nor frustrating? I am currently working on an ARPG and I am trying to figure out which elements of the game influence each other and one example is that endgame activities inherently influence loot drops handling and the other way round. The more classical loot systems we usually get in touch with are following Classic MMORPG loot where enemy bodies have to be clicked which open up a window which displays the loot that can be clicked one item at a time. Sometimes it is possible to enable auto loot in order to skip the clicking of each item. ARPG loot where slain enemies die in a explosion of loot which can occasionally get extreme up to a point where loot filters are necessary otherwise the screen will be cluttered. In this case players usually pick up uncapped currency like gold automatically while everything else from gear to crafting parts has to be looted manually if the player so desires. Diablo, Path of Exile and the likes to handle it with cliackable labels on screen while Borderlands for example spreads the loot all around the place and has visual light beams indicating rarities that allows players to filter quickly and go grab the items they might be interested in. "Loot chests" is what I call the system of Destiny. During a strike or adventure players do participate in combat and are not distracted by random loot on the ground which would require consideration as to whether picking it up is a good choice. After the event has ended, typically after defeating the final boss a chest appears that contains loot. "Vacuum loot" which was used for Guild Wars 2 and Wildstar where the loot physically drops on the ground and players can loot everything from currencies to gear with one click of a button. In an ARPG this would never work out since inventory space is even more restricted than anything else. My naive first thoughts are based on how the endgame of Diablo 3 is designed. In classic endgame rifts players can slay enemies and are usually busy picking up materials and some "useless" items that may be used to disassemble them for even more materials. Furthermore they are looking for chests and hoping for some random drops. In contrast to that game mode there are greater rifts which, similiar to Destiny, drop no loot at all except when you kill the final boss that appears after progressing far enough. In greater rifts there are no distractions just the challenge to finish those at higher difficulties and farming them with specific speed builds while on the other hand the classic rift slow down gameplay when you have to stop every few meters just to click and pick up those items. I have reached an impasse since I understand players might want to blaze through content and I don't want to make them slow down constantly (with a system like classic rifts in Diablo or Path of Exile in general) but when I stick to "loot chests" at the end of an activity it might happen that less loot drops in general and that there is less gratification when collecting things since the is nothing on the way. Take a long dungeon for example, a "loot chest" system might incentivize just skipping all enemies and do the bare minimum to tackle the final boss. In such a scenario I basically invalidated almost the entire content I am presenting! Comparing this to (current) legendary items in WoW if one legendary drops I might be relieved to finally get one (and be angry about it since it's a shitty one...) but I missed the reward stimulus up to the drop itself. Applied to my scenario, the player sees a dungeon as an annoying chore to finally get the chance of acquiring something. If the drops are not satisfying it could possibly be more demotivating thinking that that only chance to get something after such a chore was a waste of time. So my question is the following Even though loot explosions may be enojoyable at first they can degenerate into an annoyance (e.g. clicking a bazillion items on the floor). When thinking about making them less boring I end up with something that can be as frustrating in the end. How can I balance this?


How can I prevent cheating in my collecting and trading game? I develop and manage an online game where users collect and trade virtual pets (it is entirely online). It's a simple game, we periodically release new pets, users collect them and get random ones, then they trade for the ones they want, and some are rare. We also do holiday events. The problem is, there's nothing preventing people from creating new accounts, collecting a bunch of free pets, and then trading them all to their main account, or at least the rare ones. They could also trade them all to other users in exchange for things on other sites. This is against our rules, but enforcing it is subjective and difficult. Historically, we've fought this by manually catching these users and banning them, looking at ip addresses, messages, trading patterns, etc. The common defense is usually quot that's just my friend sibling and they don't play as seriously as I do quot . And that may be true, I have no way to prove it, I just have to determine myself if they've gone too far or are abusing the system. This type of cheating can be bad for our economy as it hurts rarity values, and gives cheaters an unfair advantage in the market. I believe this is a fundamentally flawed system and am trying to figure out how to fix it so cheating is not possible, or at least very difficult. I've seen other similar games force users to play mini games to earn currency to get things, whereas we just give away free stuff periodically. I don't like this approach because 1.programming mini games is a lot of extra work and 2.we're known for being a casual game, I don't think users would like playing tedious mini games over and over to collect pets. The solution I've been considering would be implementing a currency, say gold, that you get periodically for logging in and quot being active quot on the site. Gold would be required to collect the free pets, and to trade them. So even if you create a new account, you can't just trade away everything you just collected. In order to do big trades where you give away large amounts of stuff, you would have to accumulate lots of gold. Pokemon Go used this approach with stardust, but then again, there's a lot more to do in that game to earn it, and perhaps that's my problem. This has always been a simple, free to play game, and that's why people like it. Also, it's just me working on this, and my skill set is mostly web development. Can anyone offer advice? I would really appreciate any feedback. EDIT Thanks for all the great suggestions, the answers and discussion this generated helped me a lot.


How to limit players to low level content before they advance, if they can't die I am making a game with the basic RPG elements levels, xp, items, currency, stats, spells and monsters. The only different thing is that the player doesn't have hitpoints, you can't die. It's a simple game where you basically just kill and farm monsters. Now a problem I'm facing right now is "content restriction". I don't want my players to skip the low level monsters simply because they can't die by the high level ones. So how can I achieve this?


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 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.


What does a Game Designer do? what skills do they need? I know someone who is thinking about getting into game design, and I wondered, what does the job game designer entail? what tools do you have to learn how to use? what unique skills do you need? what exactly is it you'd do from day to day. I may be wording this a bit wrong because I'm not sure if the college program is become a game designer or learn game design. but I think the same questions apply either way.


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?


Dual Currency vs. One Currency in social games economics and monetization Not a programming question but game development related. I am creating an iPhone online game which I wish to be free to play where in app purchase is used for monetization. The important point is to make sure that this does not break the game play, my priority is gameplay first, monetization second. One popular way of monetizing the player base is to sell your in game currency, however there are 2 ways to go about this One Currency This currency can buy anything within the game, it can be earned through normal play at a limited rate. Players can, however, choose to buy this currency directly to speed up the acquisition of the currency. Dual Currency One currency can be earned through normal play and it can be used to buy a limited set of items that is required for normal enjoyment of the game. The second currency is 'premium' and must be purchased using real world money. This second currency can be used to purchase 'premium items' that gives extra abilities such as increase EXP gain, etc. The 2 currencies can be traded between players to give non paying players to exchange their time for the 'premium' currency. Both methods do not break gameplay and allows players who does not wish to pay enjoy the entire contents of the game if they put in enough time and effort. My question is, is there any reason why you would pick one over another? What are the pros and cons that I should pay attention to when implementing each alternative? Thank you.


Does an inventory limit in an MMORPG make sense? I am currently developing a simple 2d MMORPG. My current focus is the inventory system. I am currently wondering if I should implement a limit on what a player character can carry. Either in form of a maximum weight, a limited number of inventory slots, or a combination of both. Almost every MMORPG I ever played limits inventory space. But plausibility aside, is this really necessary from a gameplay point of view? Maybe it would in fact improve the game experience when I just let the players carry as much stuff as they want. tl dr What is the game development rationale behind limiting carrying capacity of player characters? Edit Thanks for all the answers so far. They all were very insightful. After your input I decided to go for a limited inventory to prevent people from carrying too many healing items and too much specialized equipment into dungeons. To avoid the problem of loot overload and having to return to the town all the time, I plan to give players the ability to send items from their inventory directly to their storage (but not the ability to retrieve them in the field). I accepted the answer by Kylotan for now, but do not let this discourage you from posting additional answers, when you feel that some interesting aspect wasn't covered yet.


Player fatigue for tablets? I'm thinking about making games for tablets. Coming from a PC console background, I'm keenly aware of the huge differences in the user interfaces, and that I need to design it with the target platform in mind. One aspect I'm worried about is player fatigue. The input devices used on PCs and consoles keyboards and game controllers are optimized for extended play and have mature, ergonomic designs. Most seasoned players can easily use them for an hour, clocking in thousands of key button presses, without suffering from fatigue. Designers can depend on this when designing the user experience, with consequences ranging from size length of levels, steps required to execute commands, pace of the game and many more. What about touch screen tablets? Do players become fatigued faster, or are unable to execute as many taps swipes per unit of time? If so, are there any resources or guidelines about this matter?


Is there already an accepted way to measure the "enjoyment entertainment value" of a certain game? I don't know if the question is legit, but I've tried my best. I've found this post here about measuring the creative entertainment value of video game requirement. I've done some reading but I can't see if there already exists a specific way to measure such. This one is research study about a model for evaluating player enjoyment. I don't know but, is it outdated? The study was conducted way back 2005. Is there any any studies or researches you know that is somewhat related to this or some other way?


Are random events beyond players' control necessary for "strategy" games? By "random event" I mean critical hits, misses, random variation in some kind of result etc. Examples of these include the accuracy mechanic in XCom critical hits and accuracy chance in Darkest Dungeon misses and fire breech chance in FTL. Something in common about these examples is that they are all games in which players have an indefinite amount of time to decide on actions. So, could it be that by adding random, RNG based events, the game relieves the players' burden of feeling compelled to predict every possible outcome in the future? Could a game similar to the example do away with the randomness? If so, how could that change the experience?


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.


Level playing field Punish the better player or enhance the worse player? I am making a 1 vs 1 game where each player controls a car with an identical joystick. The objective for the players is to reach a goal destination before the other player. The players of the game are placed into categories based of the skills controlling the car e.g. Skill level 1,2,3,4,5 with 5 being the highest skill level. The players will not be intended to jump up and down in skill levels when playing the game. After a given period, e.g. a week, the skill levels will be updated. This will not be shown to the players. The objective for me is to make every combination of players in the 1 vs 1 setting be a 50 50 win loss chance for the players. Example Player 1(Skill level 5) vs player 2(Skill level 1) should each have 50 change reaching the goal destination first. I have not been able to find any research on whether the best practice is to limit the abilities of the good player or enhance the abilities of the bad player or maybe a combination. The idea is to have disabled adolescents playing against their able bodied friends or family members. It is therefore not a possibility to not let good players play against bad ones. Data from field tests have shown that the disabled adolescents perform worse than able bodied consistently due to spasms. I am looking for input on how to go about with this research, your experiences, how other games are doing it? Is there any common recommendations for this?


Are hidden stats a good idea? I'm thinking of and RPG, FPS or a turn based game (does not really matter), where the player does not know his character(s) exact stats. Of course they exist as random variables of normal distribution inside the game engine. So no visible HP bar, Level, ATK or DEF. You can only determine it's status by it's signs of life (good mood, fatigued, dying, dead, etc...). With regard to casting spells, when your mana is running low, your chance of failing to cast a spell increases (so there is no "zero" point when you need to find the next gas station for refill). To measure your skill you can battle with monsters which has always have fixed (but yet unknown) stats. The stats would improve as you use them, but each character would have a random talent set so some skills can be improved easier than others. So my question for the game devs and gamers, is making the true self of your character a mystery a good idea? UPDATE From the answers it seems it depends on heavily the genre of the game. For RPGs, I thought finding out what's good for your character is fun. From the responses, it seems it's not so fun because the players usually have an established play style and will try force it from their character for all costs. The actual game idea I dreamed about is manager like game somewhat similar to the Pokemon game series. The main character has several champions and wanders around the virtual world and battles with others in an arena in a HOMM like fashion. And those champions would have the hidden stats. I didn't mentioned this in the original question because I don't wanted to bias the answers around this particular game concept. For the feedback to the player (in both cases) There would be ratings similar to the elo ratings that a chess player has. One for the melee hitting, melee blocking, ranged hitting, ranged blocking abilities, and one for the magic abilities. Hitting the opponent with a sword will increase the melee hitting rating, if the enemy blocks the hit melee hitting decreases. If the opponent hit us with a sword, our melee blocking rating decrease, for successful block it increases, same for the ranged attacks. For the magic skill it's a bit tricky. High magic ability means easier to cast spells successfully, harder to be affected by cursing spells, and easier to be affected by enchanting spells. The standard abilities like hit points, toughness, strength, magic power, are estimated from the performance of the champion. These determine the actual damage dealt on successful hit. There would be "standard champions" that has a fixed and known stats, and the other champions' stats can be measured against them to bootstrap the system. So if the player tries out all aspects of his champions he can find out the skillset his champions have, if the player don't like the skillset he can trade his champions to get the ones with skillset he likes. UPDATE 2 So to get straight to point Would it be fun if I center my game around the concept of getting to know your characters champions, instead of serving all stats readily to the player? It would be similar to the football players. The coach will need to see how their players perform in various positions to assign them to position that's the best for them. So he will need to try each one as a goalkeeper, defender or forward. After several matches it will be clear which position is good for them.


How does an iOS developer get his app game on the AppStores main page? I was looking at the front page of the AppStore, and they display a new game and a new app every day. I was just curious, how does an iPhone developer get their game or app onto that front page? Does Apple choose what goes on there? Or do you pay money? I was just curious, I don't develop games for iOS.


What is the best way to manage 'state' in Phaser? I have heard that this is not the best way to manage state in phaser var game new Phaser.Game(800, 600, Phaser.CANVAS,'YourGameName') game.state.add("Boot", Boot) game.state.add("Preload", Preload) game.state.add("MainMenu", mainMenu) game.state.add("Play", Play) game.state.add("GameOver", GameOver) game.state.start("Boot") so what is the best way to do it. I am newbie in Phaser game development.


Balancing a game about gladiatorial robot combat Suppose a player can construct a robot built from various parts and each part costs money. How would you balance the cost of a weapon against its capabilities? What about balancing weapons against other parts? The base case seems pretty easy imagine the player can only buy weapons and everything else on the robot is the same. A machine gun that fires 1 bullet per second costs 100. A super machine gun that fires twice as fast could cost twice as much. But what about an ultra machine gun that has four times the range? Now imagine the player can add other capabilities to the robot like better speed or armor. How do you relate the cost of a machine gun against the ability to move very quickly, or to be stealthed against radar? I understand that there's a later stage of experimentation where costs and capabilities are adjusted, but where do you start from?


Allow Pushing Boosting in free browser MMOGs? There seems to be a set of rules (or game design criteria) common to free MMOGs, to encourage fair competition. One such rule is that each player may have only a single account (despite the difficulty of enforcing this effectively). A related issue has recently come to my attention, where a player who does not themselves play often, instead of using their limited resources for their own gain transfers them to another, stronger player. Commonly these might include spouses or disinterested roommates or children, or friends who are no longer active in the game. Does this advantage violate an essential aspect of the design of the game, or should it be permitted?


Choosing Language on Mobile Game Currently I'm trying to localize a mobile game into popular language. Apart from technical stuff (like how to store string and including supporting fonts), I'm a bit confused about designing two things choosing first language when they play game for the first time and changing between them Currently, I already have several options about choosing first language Language is chosen programatically based on user's default language font Ask user on first time run to choose which language thay want Just set default language to english About changing language, is it necessary to give user the option to change language? (assuming that my localization team is really good without any flaw when localizing this mobile game)


How to deal with raw values and percentages? What is the standard practice for dealing with attribute modifiers in games where units have attributes, such as RTSs, MOBAs and RPGs? Specifically, in which order are "buffs" given to the unit? Suppose the case where unit X has 10 blah points (BP). It obtains two modifiers that add 10 blah points, and another one that adds 30 blah points. Finally, a enemy unit applies a 40 blah points modifier. What is the usual way of processing this, for player familiarity's sake? Aggregate by grouped type (10 30) (1.0 0.1 0.4) 28 Obtention order (10 (1.1) 30) (0.6) 24.6 Aggregate iteratively by type (10 30) 1.1 0.6 26.4 Some other way?


Is my StatisticManager idea overkill? I'm writing a shmup and I'm working on implementing things like level design and achievements. I have a trigger system that I've implemented which allows me to do basic things and can assist the basic level workflow. However, as it is, this isn't really flexible enough to recognize some other things, such as Determine when an enemy is killed vs. removed from the game Not taking damage during some period of time Killing enemies using a particular weapon Killing enemies in a particular order Whereas the triggers I have available now basically poll for information, these need to look through a series of events to understand whether the condition is met. So I've conceived a StatisticManager class which would be able to take and store all these events, and provide queries so that new triggers could be written to test for these things. For example, a trigger might ask for an ordered list of enemies killed during some time period, and then determine whether a particular sequence of kills is met. The design raises a lot of concerns, though, such as determining when to discard archive data, and how to get statistical data from previous game sessions. Certainly efficiency is a concern. So my question is Does my StatisticManager idea seem appropriate for my needs? What other designs should I consider?


Why is there almost never online multiplayer in indie games? There are alot of which are local but very few who have online.


Taking Physics into account for AI Planning What I've seen in most Game Engines and game engine design is that the Physics Engine is the be all end all system. Basically, AI for example may want to travel to some position, but it simply sends that request (velocity, direction) to the Physics Engine. If the AI really gets to that position is up to the will of the Physics Engine. Is there some Design or Physics Engine which will let you plan out how Physics will react? Before it will actually occur? Take for example that you can do Motion Planning by the AI to nearly eliminate foot sliding. images from aigamedev.com Motion Planning for Fun and Profit!


How many resources are too many? I don't know if this question is too broad but I am finally working on a game I want to release and I find that questions like "can I really add another 10 frames?", "Do I really need that animation?", "Can I add more background effects?" etc. are always on my mind and limit my creativity. I am trying to find an answer online without success, and as a hobby developer with no real training it is hard to know what is considered "too many" resources. I suppose it differs depending on what you plan to release it for etc, but is there a general rule of thumb? I want to release for Android and ios. For example I have a main character, and right now he has these animations atlas Assets.manager.get(Assets.runner, TextureAtlas.class) tallAnim new Animation(1 10f, atlas.findRegion("runner1"), atlas.findRegion("runner2"), atlas.findRegion("runner3"), atlas.findRegion("runner4")) shortAnim new Animation(1 10f, atlas.findRegion("short runner1"), atlas.findRegion("short runner2"), atlas.findRegion("short runner3"), atlas.findRegion("short runner4")) hitAnim new Animation(1 10f, atlas.findRegion("runner hit1"), atlas.findRegion("runner hit2")) flyAnim new Animation(1 10f, atlas.findRegion("runner fly1"), atlas.findRegion("runner fly2")) animation tallAnim I want to add more but I am stopping my self because I don't know if this is too much. Right now he has 12 frames, and I am rendering a scrolling background and 2 different enemies (each with 3 frames) and a few other objects. Do I need to start limiting my game or is it hard to reach a point of "too much"?


Stuck at enemy movement I am making a TD game in unity, Initially I made all of my enemy movements frame rate dependent say I had a grid point1 at 22.65 and other at 21.1, diagrammatically ( 22.65) ( 21.1) ( 21.1 1.55) ...... so the distance on x axis between two points is 1.55, divided it by 25 jumps with each enemy jump of 0.062 of each frame. On reaching on next point of grid the enemy find again its path. All went fine until I have requirement of FastForward and Pause feature. I used timeScale property of unity but it wont work as they are frame dependent. I also tried double speed of enemy on clicking fast forward button at any time, it has some issues that enemy jumps are now less and it fails to reach on next grid point. Could someone suggest me solution to my problem. Do I need to change the enemy movement code to make it frame independent ?? I need the enemy to reach on the grid specific point I also need later to slow down any one enemy's speed when tower fires on it. Thnx


RPG combat and gold exp reward equations I have a game that I'm creating, but I'm running across issues in keeping the ratios between high and low level players similar in the battle and reward equations. Obviously a higher level player should receive less experience, but have the upper hand in battle when fighting lower level players and monsters. Here is how I'm calculating things currently Battle starts If player.dex enemy.dex Accuracy ((player.dex enemy.dex) 2) 20 If player.dex lt enemy.dex Accuracy ((enemy.dex player.dex) enemy.dex) player.dex Accuracy is a percentage tested against a roll of a 100 sided die. If accuracy roll Hit success If accuracy lt roll Hit fails If hit success All of the attacker's damaging items (spiked helms and shields, weapons, etc.) are added together and applied as such Damage (player.str item.damage) (enemy.dex enemy.armor) If the player is fighting a monster, I have a base amount of gold and experience which is modified according to the player Gold gained (enemy.gold rand(1,10)) player.level Exp gained (enemy.exp rand(1,3)) player.level If the player is fighting another player, then there will have to be a different equation for the rewards, but I'm not sure how to go about creating that one. As this is my first attempt at creating (though I'm an avid RPGer), I'm not sure if there is kind of an "industry standard" form of calculating these things or not. I'm also afraid that these equations won't hold up once the player reaches higher levels (say level 50 ).


When is Micromanagment in games considered fun boring? Some players (typically the developer types, but not exclusively) love to control intricate aspects of a game (typically a simulation game) such as how long traffic lights take, how much to tax certain citizens (in sim city style games) when to change gear (in a racing game) exactly what an AI should do etc... But how far should a developer go to implement micromanagement, when does it stop becoming fun? It would be rather tedious to connect each building to the water, and electrical grid for example in sim city. Whereas issuing city ordinances is considered engaging to the player.


Time reverse mechanism in games I am wondering about how time manipulation mechanisms in games are typically designed. I am particularly interested in time reversing (sort of like in the latest SSX or Prince of Persia). The game is a 2D top down shooter. The mechanism I am trying to design implement has the following requirements 1) Actions of entities apart from the player character are completely deterministic. The action an entity takes is based on the frames progressed since level start and or the position of the player on the screen Entities are spawned at set time during the level. 2) Time reverse works by reversing back in realtime. Player actions are also reversed, it replays in reverse what the player performed. Player has no control during reverse time. There is no limit on the time spent reversing, we can reverse all the way to the beginning of the level if wanted. As an example Frames 0 50 Player moves foward 20 units over this time Enemy 1 spawns at frame 20 Enemy 1 moves left 10 units during frame 30 40 Player shoots bullet at frame 45 Bullet travels 5 foward (45 50) and kills Enemy 1 at frame 50 Reversing this would play back in realtime Player moves backwards 20 units during this time Enemy 1 revives at frame 50 Bullet reappears at frame 50 Bullet moves backwards 5 and disappears (50 45) Enemy moves left 10 (40 30) Enemy removed at frame 20. Just looking at movement I had some ideas about how to achieve this, I thought of having a interface that changed behavior for when time was advancing or reversing. Instead of doing something like this void update() movement new Vector(0,5) I would do something like this public interface movement() public void move(Vector v, Entity e) public class advance() implements movement public void move(Vector v, Entity e) e.location v public class reverse() implements movement public void move(Vector v, Entity e) e.location v public void update() moveLogic.move(new vector(5,0)) However I realised this would not be optimal performance wise and would quickly become complicated for more advance actions (such as smooth movement along curved paths e.t.c.).