Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Leaderboards— Why do games contain leaderboards or highscore lists? The
early games did not have them. The reason was that there was no semi-
permanent storage available in the game consoles. So nothing could be re-
membered between playing sessions. That was also the reason there were no
save games, which in turn had an important effect on the game mechanics:
a player always had to start again from the beginning, even if he/she was an
experienced player.
Once storage became available, designers started to introduce leader-
boards. Being better than somebody else always gives a feeling of satisfaction
and it adds an important goal for the player. But this only makes sense if there
are multiple people playing the game on the same device. If you are the sole
player, the only thing you can do is try to beat yourself. Fortunately, nowa-
days computers and game consoles are connected to the Internet. As a result
we can store leaderboards online and you can compete with the whole world.
But this adds an additional problem. A goal is only interesting when it is
reachable. Being the best player among a couple of millions is unreachable for
most people. So, worldwide leaderboards can actually reduce the satisfaction.
To remedy this, games now often introduce sub-leaderboards. For example,
you get a leaderboard of the players that is restricted to your own country or
to the scores reached this week. Also you can see how you rank amidst your
friends.
Carefully designing the scoring system of your game and the way such
scores are shown in leaderboards can make a crucial difference in the satis-
faction it gives to your players.
18.6 What You Have Learned
In this chapter, you have learned:
how to build a timer using the GameTime type;
how to access pixel color information in a Texture2D object;
how to play sound effects and music using the extended asset manager.
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