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Post by eyfenna on Sept 26, 2019 9:27:18 GMT -6
Johnno reminded me that often we assume we know what a game is, yet I personally don't know what a game is. So over the years I collected various terms and descriptions or semi definitions for what elements of a game are.
The below elements are competition neutral, meaning they ignore that a game may be competitive by declaring a winner or distributing marks of better place. Additional this is a short version of a school or model of thought about games I am develloping I am going to post more in this thread in the future somewhen or might rework it entirely. If designing a game this list might be helpfull as checklist to see what element in a game is missing or too much present. Anyway don't use this as a scientifical text which arguments truth that is proven through experiment, overall it is just a first model and has not been used often enough in analysing games.
A game-space this is the space a game takes while happening, this can be a small sheet of paper, a small board, one or more rooms in a building a building, one computer or several ones, it can be only the space of language or sheets of paper with alphanumerical and numerical letters on it, it might even be one person only or several persons, a collection of game cards or a cup and some dices. A game-marker, this is any symbol or item which is part of the game and which has a meaning through marking a place in game, game-card to a field on a chess board or a the line and square in pong or the card location names like the pile, hand or out of the game. A game-places, game-places are the collection of markers within the game space, the spatial arrangement of game-places can be fixed like on a board as in chess or backgammon or they are loosely arranged like in a card game. Even mixed forms like in sport games being hockey, football or soccer where the game field holds fixed places while the ball and the players are on loosley moving places only regulated by the rules as to where not to move. A game-state the combination of game places and game marker forms something akin to a network that changes over time. The puck changes the player, the players move or as in texas hold'em pocker cards move from the giver to the players hand and cards in the center of the table. The network which is a game state reforms each move to different form. A game-state-indicator is a term for a specific form of the network referred to as game-state. As in the ball is in the goal in soccer, the player fouled for example in basketball when two game-markers being the players connected in a specific physical manner, the chess game is won when the king of one of the players is unable to move out of the movement space of an enemy's chess figure. A random generator is also part of the game this way the network or game states does not evolve in purely predictable manner unlike cars in physics. The card pile is mixed before a card game round starts, the weather is different through a racing season, the dice changes randomly. Last but not least or most essential, a game would be like fire, moving randomly without the rules which assign to each game-state or network-configuration a number of possible follow up configuration. The player in basketball can dribble when moving however he may pass the ball to another player or throw it on the basketball basket. If not able to dribble he may change direction through moving on foot only around a second one. If the basketball lands in the basket and was thrown in the three point zone the network or game-state evolves by increasing a number by three points. |
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Post by johnno56 on Sept 26, 2019 18:05:55 GMT -6
Cool... There were a couple of things that I do not usually hear / read... like 'chess' or 'basketball'... Nah kidding. I had known about some of this but have never had a name or description applied to them... Ha.. Well I am impressed. "I" actually learned something... Will wonders ever cease? Many thanks for your efforts, eyfenna. Much appreciated.  |
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Post by tbird on Sept 27, 2019 9:33:25 GMT -6
Nice write-up eyfenna very thorough and well thought out. |
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Post by eyfenna on Sept 27, 2019 10:19:16 GMT -6
I am going to come back to above list and describe a simple game later in the thread, yet for the moment it is also essential to know how what technical elements a computer game holds in other words how a computer game is organized.
All computer games consist of the same five steps through which the program goes. These five phases are best kept in mind as they are so typical.
The first step is intialisation, in this step the variables that are used in the game are registerd in memory, the graphic is set up and started. Having concluded this the game starts the game loop which runs until the game is shut down.
Within the game loop the first step is to deal with the player input in this phase the objects which the user commands are changed by his direct command, like moving the bat in a pong game or the figure which represents the player
The second step is to update the game world, here the game calculates the positon of the game world view, the various mobs, bullets which have been released and goes through collision detection followed by setting variables depending on what intersects with what other entity/object.
The third step is the draw the game world. Here the graphic related part of an engine is at work.
Keep in mind that also menus and choice displays are within the game loop. It only ends when the player chooses to quit the game then the game loop ends.
After the game loop ends the in some programming languages tiredsom part of shutting down the game follows as last step. Here varibles which have been registered in the first step are cleaned from memory which for example in c or c++ has to be done per hand.
I hope this little text helps some to easen the process of organizing a game on a technical level.
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Post by eyfenna on Sept 27, 2019 12:50:15 GMT -6
As johnno asked about if to start with pong here is a description using above game element list of pong, keep in mind that the system I use is far from complete and only one possible system. Beside this I so far haven't created that many descriptions of existing games using above list.
- The game space is a computer including the periphery being controllers or keyboard for input, a screen to display the game and sound producing ones the game happens and is limited by the borders of the screen it is displayed on or in.
- The game markers are two lines being names the bats, one at the right and one at the left side of the screen, a dot and two numbers divided by space or a double point or a slash generally at the top of the screen named the score. Additional the borders of the screen.
- The game states are combination of the relative position of the point to the bats, each position of the two bats and the numbers display in the score
- The game state indicators are the dot is inbetween the two bats or connected to the two bats or farther out on the screen than on of the two bats additional it can connect to the borders of the screen. The dot is constantly moving. The bats move if directed to do so.
- The random generator in this game is the players brain itself deciding on how to position the bat related to the dot.
- The rules:
The two bats are on the opposite of the screen being able to only move up or down. The dot can move freely and connect freely. A event of connecting to one of the screen markers has different outcomes.
If the dot connects with a bat it changes direction of movement the to the connected bat opposite part of the screen. The movement of the bat translates to the dot allowing for introducing a up or down movement.
If it connects with the upper or lower border it does also change direction of movement being down if it it the upper border or up if it is the lower border.
If the dot connects to either the right or left border the number in the score on the opposite side is increased meaning if the dot connects with the left border the right number in the score is increased if the dot connects with the right border then left number in the score is increased.
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Post by johnno56 on Sept 28, 2019 3:31:56 GMT -6
I've made a few Pong games in my days but have not seen it laid out the way you have done it. It pretty much describes the main components of the game. Nicely done.
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Post by n00b on Sept 28, 2019 8:06:12 GMT -6
eyfenna I like how you kept this broad enough that it could apply to game development in general. You really have a knack for writing.
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