Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
game, it will be an exciting match, instead of a certain draw as is the case with
tic-tac-toe. It is hard to explain these differences just by looking at the differences
in the rules.
FIGURe 2.1
in
Connect Four
,
gravity makes sure
players can occupy
only the bottom most
unoccupied square
in each column.
(image by permission
of Wikimedia
commons contributor
Popperipopp under
a creative commons
3.0 license.)
example:
Civilization
Sid Meier's
Civilization
is a good example of a game of emergence. In
Civilization,
you lead a civilization as it evolves over roughly six millennia. During the game,
you build cities, roads, farmlands, mines, and military units. You need to upgrade
your cities by building temples, barracks, courthouses, stock markets, and so on.
Cities produce money that you use to research new technology, to convert into
luxuries to keep the population happy, or to speed up the production of units and
upgrades.
Civilization
is a turn-based game set on a tile-based map, with each turn
representing a number of years of your civilization's history. The choices you make
determine how fast your civilization will grow, how sophisticated its technology is,
and how powerful its military. Several other computer-controlled civilizations com-
pete with you for space and resources on a finite map.
Civilization
is a large game with many different game elements. However, the indi-
vidual elements are surprisingly simple. The mechanics for city upgrades can easily
be expressed with a few simple rules. For example, a temple costs one gold per turn
and will reduce the number of unhappy citizens in a city by two. Units have simple
