Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
In this chapter, we continued our exploration of ways to more closely integrate
game mechanics with progression techniques. We first examined a variety of
traditional lock-and-key mechanisms and showed how they can be extended by
creating dynamic systems that serve as keys to unlock new regions or new features
of the game.
In the second half of the chapter, we considered ways to make game progression
an emergent property of the game rather than a simple factor based on a player's
position in the game space. By treating progress itself as a resource, or as a value
computed from a combination of factors, it becomes possible to create games with
much less predictable progression patterns. Using the
slow cycle
and other design
patterns, you can also break the game's progress into distinct phases, which creates
variety in the gameplay for the player.
In the next chapter, we turn our attention to the ways you can use game mechan-
ics to transmit a meaningful message from the designer to the player. As people start
using games more and more to teach, inform, and persuade, this is an increasingly
important topic.
1.
Review your recent game designs. Find a lock-and-key mechanism. Without
adding new mechanisms to the game, try to find at least three different ways to
create different locks for the same key.
2.
Pick two random design patterns from Appendix B and use them to create
a dynamic lock-and-key mechanism. Can you use that mechanism as the basic
structure for an entire level?
3.
Find a published game of emergence that clearly has a distinct number of game-
play phases. Can you identify what mechanisms work to stabilize a phase, and what
mechanisms work to create transitions between phases?
4.
What patterns can you use to create emergent gameplay phases in the Lunar
Colony game? (See the section “Designing Lunar Colony” in Chapter 9, “Building
Economies.”)
