Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
W EIGHTING A S INGLE C RITERION
With all of the above methods, tips, and tricks in place, we are now able to approach
the issue of actually scoring the value of something. To make our decisions, we need
to consider information. Often, the information is not as simple as a binary “yes or
no.� For example, in a decision about whether or not we should get a health kit, we
aren't using “alive or dead� as a factor. We are concerned with the gray areas of how
much health we currently have. Are we fully healthy? Doing well? A little injured?
Are we dragging our limbs behind us? By taking that entire spectrum of possibili-
ties into account, we can craft deeper, more meaningful decisions.
One of the first considerations when deciding how we should weight a single
criterion is whether we are tracking the actual value of something or the utility . The
former case is more intuitive and certainly more common.
C ONCRETE N UMBERS
We count and measure plenty of things in games: units, buildings, numbers of bul-
lets in our guns, damage dealt over time, health, and how much money items cost.
We often use these concrete numbers in our decisions. In fact, much of the heavy lift-
ing of decision making involves concrete numbers. The game world is no exception.
For example, we may take the number of bullets remaining in our gun as a de-
ciding factor on whether or not we should reload. Obviously, if the number drops
to 0, reloading becomes relatively important. However, we can treat this in a non-
binary fashion as well: the lower the number, the more we may consider taking a
moment to reload.
Another decision may involve comparing our health to the damage we are ex-
pecting to receive from an opponent over time. We can compare this to the dam-
age we are likely to deal over time and the opponent's health to determine which of
us is going to survive a conflict. All of the figures in the above calculation are con-
crete numbers: damage ( d ) over time ( t ) vs. health ( h ).
A BSTRACT R ATINGS
The game world is sometimes too enamored with concrete numbers. This is likely
a by-product of the fact that computers count and perform math so well. Therefore,
we programmers tend to gravitate toward using things that our computers can
count and mathematically juggle. A typical thought process may sound like:
“Ok, then we will add up the number of…, multiply it by the number of…
and, if it is greater than three times the number of…, we will do [insert noble
deed] as many times as it takes to construct the right number of….�
 
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