Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURe 10.12
a partial skill tree for
Super Mario Bros
.
“easy to learn but a liFetime to master”
When we're teaching a player to play a game, we use tutorials and other methods to
teach some skills explicitly. Other skills, however, the player must learn on her own
through experience. For example, the number of explicit skills in chess is very small—a
few rules about the moves, plus castling,
en passant
capture, and pawn promotion. But
the number of skills the player must learn implicitly in chess is enormous. designers
characterize this quality of a game with the phrase “easy to learn but a lifetime to
master.” Games that have this quality also tend to have skill trees that are deep instead
of wide. Games that depend on only a few primary skills don't have to teach players a lot
to get them going. at the same time, the long chains of skills learned through experience
might take a lifetime to master.
