Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

Building Game Worlds
156
U L T I M A T E G A M E D E S I G N
Pitching
Fielding
We want to use scripting and value tweaks to create fine control for different kinds of
baseball pitches like breaking balls, curve balls, rising fastballs, sinking fastballs, and
knuckle balls, among others. We can create entirely new pitches (some impossible for
a human to throw!). What we really want to do is replicate for the player the feeling
and presence of facing these various pitches as a batter. In the pitching category, we
begin with some of the basics, including:
� Velocity The ball speed coming at the player.
� Ball spin Amount and direction of spin on the ball.
� Rise over time How much the ball rises on its path coming into the catcher.
� Drop over time How much the ball drops away on its path coming into
the catcher.
� Seek left plate edge How much “attraction” for the ball toward the left
side of home plate.
� Seek right plate edge How much “attraction” for the ball toward the right
side of home plate.
� Random Set all of these to a random number and see what happens!
� Bad throw seed value Control the occurrence of bad pitches.
Most of these values can be tuned via a simple GUI tool that allows for value edits.
No actual scripting is necessarily required. However, depending on your development
configuration, you might not have a GUI tool available and may then find yourself
editing these values either directly in the game code or in a script.
Building behaviors for our fielders will be a complex undertaking, and never perfect,
since baseball by its very nature demands a lighting-fast real-time analysis of any
given situation in context. (Should I risk letting the ball roll foul? Should I try for a
double play, or go for the easy out?) For fielding, we might start with the following:
� Catch radius The radius within which a ball can be considered caught.
� Throw speed The velocity a ball is thrown to a bag or another player.
� Throw distance The distance in units that the ball is in the air.
� Run speed How fast a fielder will run to make a catch, dive, or jump play.
� Ball shadow scale How large the ball shadow is; useful for setting up a catch.