Game Design and Artificial Intelligence - Bournemouth University

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Game Design and Artificial Intelligence David Hopkins memory of previous events once you have moved into a different area and they solely react based on the players social attributes. “ The worst kind of game are those (usually adventure games) in which it'sobvious that the designer thought he he was writing a film or a novel. It'sthe frustrated author syndrome, and you know you're bearing the brunt of it when your choices in the game have shrunk to one linear path, or when you find yourself scrolling through never ending cutscene dialogues waiting to get to the action. These designers are entertaining nobody but themselves.” Dave Morris and Andrew Rollings [Rollings00] An engaging and believable story is one good way of drawing in the players attention, a good example of this is nintendo’ s “Z elda” series and all through the “final fantasy” series. The one setback to this is that the main story is often a linear event, and is not affected by the methods of how a player has gone through the story. Fable yet again has adhered to this, and has two potential endings , with both an ending for an evil and holy individual, although you are still forced to fight the inevitable final battle at the end. “Escap e Velocity: EV Nova” goes one better than this, and has a choice of six stories which support the main exploratory trading adventure. Many games now implement main stories with plenty of smaller stories and side quests. These help add a lot more detail to the game world and give the player options as to whether he wishes to fulfill these quests. “B aldurs Gate” utilizes this idea, and it certainly adds character to the world, but the main story is far too linear and there are many occasions where you are forced into encounters, or along specific routes. One of the main features of the concept is that man management will be key. One of the best current examples of this is the “championship manager” series by Eidos, or more recently “F ootball Manager 2005” by Sega. The main objective is to manage your football team through to league and cup success through shrewd market purchases and tactics. However this game also involves several interesting man management techniques. The players can be very temperamental at times, going through both good and bad patches of form regularly. Players that haven'tbeen selected for games recently may hand in transfer requests and become unhappy, affecting their overall performance in games. Other events similar to this can occur. All of them have been built around the player and could be avoided if the game was restarted. This is a terrific example of how the crew should be during the game. All of the games mentioned in this section have a lot that can be learned from, and hopefully much of this can be incorporated into the design and implementation. Though it is easy to get carried away at this point, it is best to try and keep things simple. Background Story The galaxy was once forged by a relationship between two races, the Orains and the Hwetrese. The Orains discovered the knowledge of the “ LightDrive” which allows spaceships to travel faster than the speed of light by converting a ship into molecules of light matter. Through this invention, the Orains become a race of discoverers and explorers and began setting up colonies Page 4 of 22
Game Design and Artificial Intelligence David Hopkins on other worlds. The Hwetre are a highly technological race which thrives on natural resources. However due to overwhelming demands from their spacecraft, The Hwetre have had to mine from other nearby planets for more fuel. To keep their homeworld habitable, they began researching into terrorforming environments, and after a few experiments have become successful. When the two races met, a new relationship was forged and a spacefleet designed to explore and keep order was created. This was known as the Trekan space fleet. Peace reigned throughout the galaxy for several decades. But the Hwetrese need for natural resources was proving too demanding as more citizens were being able to purchase more affordable space craft, and the need for fuel was highly extravagant. The Trekan space fleet issued demands that the Hwetrese should convert to natural energy. The C.O.M.P.are against this and force the Hwetrese government to stick with fuel but implore that they will begin researching effective manners of using solar or hydrogen based fuels. The tension between the two races mounted and this evolved into a full scale war when the Hwetrese agency along with the C.O.M.P. had developed a super sized ship, known as the “ Doombringer” . This ship had the ability to terrorform planets rapidly into uninhabitable lifeless rocks. Orais is destroyed by the Hwetrese space fleet in the “Ba ttle for Orais”, a nd the remaining survivors are forced to flee to the “pi rate lands” , unchartered areas which are ungoverned. The C.O.M.P. (Corporation of Mineral Production) The largest fuel producer of the known galaxy, and one of the biggest craft manufacturers. Began as a family business, and expanded greatly during the space age when it was selected as the manufacturer for the Hwetrese Space Research Company. Due to the status and supplements of the COMP, they own the highest position on the board for the Hwetrese Space Fleet. Hwetre This is the capital of the known galaxy, and home to the Hwetrese Space Fleet. This is heavily industrialized and the air is stale from fumes and the over pollution. The Landscapes vary from the architectural amazement of the great cities to the deserts and seas. There is little natural plant life left apart from several protected reserve areas. The Hwetrese Space Fleet Now Split into quadrants to help enforce their status within the galaxy. All quadrant overseers are part of the board, who share the responsibility of control. There are many patrols and spacedocks run by the Hwetrese fleet. The Orains Driven from their home planet by the Hwetrese, they now dwell in the unmapped territories. They are now a split race with few command ships to build an effective resistance. Despite this there are a few have sworn revenge on the Hwetre and formed pirate organizations to fight against the new Page 5 of 22
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Game Design and Artificial Intelligence - Bournemouth University

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