Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

C H A P T E R 6
In a nonprogrammatic scripting environment, sometimes the script system simply
generates a file with values (velocity = 44.6) that you can edit for effect, and this file is
then read into the game engine to control some behavioral aspects.
In many cases, the scripting system you use is built to interface with your game engine.
It may have a full graphic user interface (GUI) like a standard familiar Windows
program, or it may be some flavor of a simple text editor that allows you to edit values,
rebuild, and then test the results of your changes and edits.
In this chapter, we’re going to take a close look at how to use script systems to
build a wide array of behavior types into a game. We’ll also consider another powerful
and primary scripting resource, the use of triggers!
S CRIPTING TECHNOLOGY CHOICES
As in many other areas of game development, today developers have several choices
to make when choosing how they will handle scripting in their games. In the recent
past, the practice of “scripting” game behaviors wasn’t very common at all. Any direct
change to gameplay, of any kind, had to be coded into the game directly by programmers.
Scripting helps developers “dial in” and experiment with game behaviors (for
example, a certain weapon’s firing speed and range of effect, or vehicle and character
traversal properties like friction, gravity, and pitch) more efficiently. Yet, we still
have a very long way to go in being able to build complex behaviors quickly.
Nowadays, programmers face a considerable and constant challenge in keeping
game engines fresh and powerful with technology and tools for a variety of ever-changing
hardware platforms and devices. Programmers ultimately determine how much
control and influence a scripting system will have on a game. Typically, game programmers
collaborate with designers to build as much “power editing” as they can
into a given script system. The goal is to have a scripting system that is so powerful and
flexible that it can produce a wide array of possible gameplay results. This means that
during development, game behaviors for your title can react to player feedback and focus
dynamically. You can quickly answer “play-feel” questions like “What if we speed
up the rocket boots, decrease gravity, and cut back the rate of fire?”
At the level of competition in the current game market, developers know that only
the best-playing or best-performing content will probably succeed. It has become apparent
to many developers that having team members focused exclusively on building
and monitoring gameplay content via scripting tools can help shape a much
stronger game title.
As the language of choice for scripting, some developers choose to use Visual Basic
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/), Python (www.python.org), or JavaScript/JScript
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Scripting Action Events