iat 410 || advanced game design

Game Maker (Breaker) to XNA

We made a critical decision last week.
After weighing the pros and cons of the Game Maker and XNA engines, we've decided to switch to XNA. We felt that GM was too restricting and we were having difficulty working with the scripts, especially when we wanted to do more with our code.

We know that this will be a very big challenge for us. Even though Darrell and I faired pretty good on our third and second attempts, respectively, at CMPT 125 - Java, we are quite aware of the difficulty ahead of us. Fortunately the instructors and TA are better suited to helping us with XNA than with GM. Also, finding resources on XNA is much easier.

So for the past week, I've scrapped the GM Alpha our Food Fight and I'm currently in the process of re-familiarizing myself XNA.

Hopefully for the coming week an alpha can be produced.

Project Antlion

Mechanics:

• Moving ant across the playing field (game board grid) within the board’s boundaries
• Number of spaces allowed to move was determined by dice rolls
• If the game is based off a RTS, then the randomness of dice rolls removes the player’s ability to make decisions.
• If they had used a Chess approach, where the player could only move in certain directions, then players are given a bit more freedom to make choices.
• Team noted that players did not like the randomness of the dice

Dynamics:

• Photos provided in the presentation showed a plain board with a grid
• No *special* squares that players could land on to receive buffs (player advantages) or de-buffs/obstacles (player disadvantages).
• I’m unsure of other dynamics player faced during gameplay

Aesthetics:

• Escaping from the antlion provides the player with a thrill of danger
• Having a constant threat on the player keeps them on their toes, trying to think of ways to escape

Project Fins of Fury

Mechanics:

• Moving across the game board hex grid
• Fight enemies to collect points
• Enough points collected, player grows up, moves to next level
• Dice rolls determined player movement, AI, chances

Dynamics:

• Testers wanted more incentive to move forward in the game
• FLOW not steep enough in prototype
• Players found little difficulty due to the lack of rewards and challenges
• Implementing chance with dice rolls looks simple in theory, but a single dice roll to determine if an enemy has a chance to hit can leave the player feeling helpless
• Chance should include other variables that the player can somehow control
• Maybe a type of challenge like in Street Fighter Third Strike, where players press down/forward to parry an incoming attack

Aesthetics:

• Players wanted weapons
• The inclusion and variety of weapons creates a sense of power for the players
• Being able to choose how you want to kill an enemy can be a powerful aesthetic
• Ratchet and Clack series
• Applying strategy to killing enemies makes players think
• Players wanted multiple enemies to increase the challenge and change up their strategy of killing a single enemy
• Also wanted variety
• Caves to explore, etc gives players the sense of discovery

Project Mizu

Mechanics:

• Fight the clock/time attack
• Main game mechanic is the player’s ability to splash and inflict splash damage on enemies
• Very cool idea of indirectly dealing damage to enemies
• Reminds me of Unreal Tournament and the use of the Rocket Launcher to indirectly kill players by shooting the ground instead of directly at them
• Player’s ability to make choices as to where they wanted to go in the map was restricted with invisible walls
• Very linear game progression
• Player’s attack chances were controlled by dice rolls
• Maybe include another choice player could make
• A: roll dice to determine chance to land attack
• B: lose 1 hp for 100% chance to land attack

Dynamics:

• Assisting the turtle NPC allowed players choose if they wanted to ride on its back
• Unfortunately this was short lived as you would have to get off its back and continue your journey almost immediately
• Enemy attacks were also controlled by dice rolls
• Enemy attack variation was limited
• Rewards for defeating enemies were plentiful

Aesthetics:

• Players had enough Advancement and Completion in the game because of progressing through the level and surviving obstacles
• Artwork was very well done, which added to player involvement

Project Untitled

Mechanics:

• Dice rolls to determine movement within malleable game boundary
• If testers found area was bad, they could easily change the space
• Move through space to solve puzzles
• Character cards with stats and attributes
• Deal attacks based on cards available to player

Dynamics:

• No enemies drops for loot or buffs given to player
• Players could not heal themselves

Aesthetics:

• Puzzles gave players something to think about
• Had too many puzzles in game which overwhelmed the player
• Developing a strategy with cards to defeat enemies
• Taking card game aesthetic and applying that into a single player experience
• More fun when applying such tactics onto another player, but still worked in Zelda like setting
• Single player more suited for action, in my opinion