Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
simulate combat when you're trying to take a tile that's currently occu-
pied by your opponent's forces. In this game, rolling a six (on a six-sided
die) is called an
explosion
, and it allows you another free attack—a ran-
dom development that can swing a battle in one player's favor dramati-
cally.
Obviously, I don't think that's an elegant solution to the stalemate
problem. It would be preferable to come up with a way that players can
fake each other out: maybe one player could suggest that he or she is go-
ing to take tile A but instead takes tile B. Of course, this kind of element
couldn't be a completely free action or the game would essentially come
down to rock-paper-scissors—but if the costs associated with switching
and moving forces are high enough you could have a much more elegant
solution on your hands. Randomness is the easy way out.
Long-Term Planning
Due to the aforementioned randomness, it's often completely impossible
for players to plan beyond their immediate turns in such games: players
simply have to make the best move given the current situation. Long-
term planning relies on too many random factors that could go in com-
pletely unpredictable directions.
One possible solution to this is to use a
Robo Rally
-inspired system
of asynchronous, perpetual motion. In
Robo Rally
,
pieces move at pre-
dictable rates each turn; their motion can be modified by the players, but
only in a limited way. This allows for a larger element of planning, since
players are guaranteed a limited number of future game-states. Another
solution would be to simply reduce the range of randomness— for in-
stance, instead of ten different types of tiles or cards that can be drawn
maybe there are only three.
Bidding Games
Examples:
Money
,
Modern Art
,
Amun-Re
,
Power Grid
, the original
Mo-
nopoly
Bidding is one of the oldest forms of game playing, as it is an extension
of the familiar economic activity of price setting—a very natural and dy-
namic way of finding out what something is worth. Decisions in a bid-
ding game are often quite difficult to make and involve considerations
of how far to press your luck and the degree to which you know your
opponent.
Bidding games start with some object of value on the table that more
than one player wants. The first player bids a certain amount of resources
