Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Manipulating the player's emotions
This brings us to another point that is sometimes a bit overlooked. If you think about
it, one of the things that video games do at their core is manipulating the emotions
of the player. If the players become mad, they may quit and maybe never play the
game again. But beyond that kind of thing, manipulating the player's emotions goes
much deeper. For example, games make players emotionally connected to certain
characters, and make them hate others. Manipulating the player's emotions can be
embedded in the basic gameplay mechanics as well. If the player earns rewards reg-
ularly, it makes them feel good and also gives them more reason to keep going. On
the other hand, a deep and powerful story can do the same thing.
So, as you can see, there are many tools and problems to overcome in the world of
game design. But if you love video games and have a desire to create them, all the
work is worth it in the end when you see your finished game in action, and hopefully
get lots of good feedback from your fans.
Lastly, one of the best tips for new game programmers is to start small. Don't get too
ambitious because if you bite off more than you can chew, you will likely end up with
a project that never gets finished. And those are definitely not the kind of projects we
want to make!
If you do become an indie developer, congratulations are in order! In this case, you
should try to communicate well with your fans. They will appreciate it a lot, and they
are also a source of great ideas that you could potentially integrate into your games.
Note
As mentioned earlier, don't forget to include error handling in your code. This is
extremely important in case the user doesn't have a compatible sound card or
video card installed for example. So, when you create your DirectSound / XAudi-
o2 or Direct3D / DirectInput device, make sure that it is not null right after creat-
ing it as this obviously won't work very well. Your program will probably crash.
