Jose:
I am not asking about implementation...but general design approaches.
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Game Design 101 for a newbie
I have a simple 2D board game I am trying to write in C#.
I need some help with the design...all of it.
I need some good recommendations on articles that talk generally about game design. How do I take an idea and design it.
There are a lot of elements I want to pull together:
-I want to leverage OOP in my design.
-There will be a game board and game piece that you drag and drop to make game moves.
-I have the game rules written out but not sure how to design the way to enforce them.
-I want P2P internet play ability.
-I want chat ability
-I need to save the game
-I need to be able to load in saved games
-I want a level editor so I can make game boards
-Support for sound
All of these things need to be designed, but I don't know how.
Thanks!
Tom
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Answers
Jose has some really good points.
Make sure you fully consider you game. Has it already been done? What new features or content does it provide to your audience ? What key factors make it fun, and need to be focused on during development. Since your talking a 2d board game I would really hunt down available frameworks and APIs, there are a lot out there for 2d.
Make sure to start simple. Like he said figure out the game mechanics how things work, and how it plays. I would almost suggest starting OO classes that handle the play logic and making a simple text-based console to allow you to easily interact with the game mechanics, leave the complexity of graphics out of the picture for the moment if you can. Focus on getting the game to play in memory off your actions through a text interface or an ultra simple interface. Game Mechanics are bound to need a lot of manipulation to get them right, and no matter what graphics you put over top the mechanics are essential. Once you are confident in your game mechanics and rule then I would start looking towards a 2d enviornment. Drawing the state of your game in memory. Next add your user interaction with the drawn state. I would get the game to the point where you can play it yourself or two people at the same keyboard and mouse before you even start working on networking and chatting. This way you don't spend a ton of time rewriting your interface because your core is in flux. In the end you want to get the most core version of your game done as soon as possible then add in the networking.
Behind the scenes you will really need to think long and hard on your object model. A good way to start is to write out in detailed text exactly how everything works and interacts then go back with a highlighter and highlight key Nouns and consider those for objects. Like you have implied -- Board, Piece(s), Player(s), Rules(s)... maybe you also have dice, card, etc.... but get a sense of the actors then determine the relationships, maybe start diagraming them in UML to help make sense of it all before you waste time on something you might rewrite down the road. When you think Object oriented think of real world concepts. For instance, a player, in a game might have a name or handle, a current score, a collection of resources or many other things.... the player object might move their piece on the game board, or draw a card, etc. if you can acturally place the data you need to track and methods to interact with in the correct objects it will make it easier when you add features like online play. A player could then be extended to a new object such as OnlinePlayer which now includes an ip address, etc. as far as the game is concerned he's still a Player and your system works for you. So define a solid Encapsulation and inheritance like this.
So basically start simple, put a lot of thought into it, study up on OO if you need to, and design the basic game first before you add a complex interface of the "gold plating" to your game. You want to get a basic game working first then trick it out.
isisagate:
Thanks for your feedback!
Incidentally, http://www.sloperama.com has some really good design documentation and how-to.
If you wants tips in technology, I advice using XNA, creating 2D games in XNA is like eating french fries. XNA is based on C#. And its free!
To your answers, let me explain why XNA fits to all:
-You want OO design, XNA is based on C# which is hundred percent OO. (For UML tools, I think netbeans does the trick, its free, search it at java.sun.com)
-Drag and drop is easy to implement in XNA because mouse is supported.
- ..............Here is a way to start, sit before a paper, now think what is the summary of game, what are winning conditions and loosing conditions. Then, move on to what blocks would be there in your board game, what actions would player be able to take, what elements can player have, money, skills, property etc. Finally work out the major rules, all oriented around game idea and winning and loosing and then come up with other ideas.
-XNA provides you with networking options and the fun factor is that the game is hosted freely on microsoft live servers, you don't have to purchase a dedicated host for it. (If you want p2p, I won't advise you that one because network traffic increase incrementally for each new player, it is bound to get all jammed, p2p is not good for games, I recommend client-server)
-Chat ability is available in XNA (I mean you can create one with sockets)
-File system is available in C#, you can implement game save mechanism.
-Loading saved games is possible, you just have to load a file which contains the specs about where the player left the game, according to that, games could be loaded.
-Ah! Level editor, let me think. erm.. No, You would have to use Flash or some other drawing software for that and import it into XNA as an image. Pity.
-XNA has pretty good sound support.
Did I forgot to mention that XNA is at creators.xna.com?
If you need any help in this regard, even to help you with the game coding, I am always available to game programmers, just dump an email to pait.umar@gmail.com
I would like to add a thought. Since it is a 2d game, take a look at www.thegamecreators.com or www.blitzbasic.com . They allow you to code in basic with "game" commands, so you could get the general feel for what you want your game to do quickly. It may even be good enough that you wouldn't need to continue in C.
I have been using them to "tinker" with 3d games, including network play.
Here is a really good place to start....
Beginning Game Development: Part I Introduction @ Gaming4Fun
http://blogs.msd
I created something similar using Game Maker, along with the book The Game Maker's Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners and got good results. Simplifies many processes such as loading and saving. Also a lot of the game creation was created using drag and drop with very little programming required.
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by: JoseParrotPosted on 2006-12-14 at 19:38:21ID: 18144207
Hi, Tom,
This is a 5000 points question... Each topic you ask for is a complete question with a number of options.
Of course, we understand you want to develop a good game, with good design and coding.
Let me suggest to put it in distinct parts.
For example, P2P playing. This envolve internet protocols, communications routines/functions. Alone, this is already a complex subject.
Chating is another complex question, in the context of the game.
Let me suggest to develop the game in parts, as the chapters in a book.
The way your question was post, I see a TOC of the book. But I don't agree with the order.
So, a viable roadmap could be:
1. The game definition: the actors, what thay do and don't, rules, how points are conquered, what happens in each level
(seems you have already this part)
2. Translate each definition topic in programming and design actions: create the actors (form, colors, shape), how do they move (pixel by pixel, which directions allowed? left, right, up, diagonal, etc.). At this point you start to select the tools: DirectX? OpenGL, Any 3rd part tool for game board (there are several of them, and probably this will be the right direction)
3. Understand drag and drop or other techniques for piece moves.
4. Save/load
5. Define sounds (wave? midi? clicks and poings? human voices?) to chose the programming tools.
6. P2P very later, after good understanding of how things move from one PC to other by the internet.
etc.
As you see, you have a long walk ahead.
As a first step, you may want take a look at
http://www.gamedev.net/ref
Jose