Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

C H A P T E R 5
“interface hazard” exists everywhere you look in the construction of an RTS title—
true for other genres as well, but especially true for an RTS. Multimenu systems that
you have to drill down into are slow and irksome to the player. You lose people when
interfaces are too deep. If you sacrifice interface comprehension and navigability for
complexity or a multitude of features, you are burning your audience.
I try to pay very close attention to game interfaces. I study even closer the ones that
don’t lose me. I keep a journal of what works well in an interface for me, and some
notes on why I believe it works so well. Was it a layout factor? Was it a customization
feature that made it easier for me?
Unit behavior must interact with the terrain or environmental setting of the game.
In various formations, as individuals and as groups, units must navigate terrain.
They need to find their way around objects on the terrain (such as buildings, rivers,
and other units). The code used to control their movement from point A to point B is
called pathfinding code. There are several algorithms that programmers can use to
create the control code that describes how units should move and conform when confronted
by obstacles. How do you move a large group formation through a narrow
passage? Units get stuck, hidden, and clumped together. It’s a bottleneck of ants trying
to get into the ant hole.
In creating CPU opponents to challenge the player, your scripts and game code
will have to be balanced against an “average” human player (it’s hard for all developers
to determine exactly where the median or average game skill level is for any kind
of title).
The human player might make better strategic moves, for example, but be slower
at building up a large fighting force. The CPU can build forces quickly by constantly
creating new soldiers at an optimal rate, but will probably make some bad strategic
moves. You have to balance all of this with the play experience in mind. If the CPU
quickly and effortlessly builds a huge army with the most-advanced soldiers, vehicles,
and weapons available in the game and devastates the human player immediately
(and repeatedly, if your player grants you another chance to entertain them),
you’re going to have a frustrated and humiliated player. This is the exact opposite of
the experience you intend to deliver. Yet, many games continue to make this mistake.
Since we’re building a game with strategy at the core, how much strategic thinking
will we demand from the player? When building up strategy scenarios, we can use either
simple or complex strategy. Simple strategy might imply doing something to
counter your enemy. That’s not enough, though. Does it make for an exciting and addictive
play experience?
Requiring players to use complex strategy, where the player must be thinking several
moves ahead of their own current position (like the kind of strategy and concentration
chess requires) can make for a very difficult game. This will narrow the
number of players for your game. Most games build scenarios around simple strategy.
This strategy element regularly takes the form: “use these weapons or these vehicles
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Design by Genre