Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
pass over it in the blink of an eye. One solution is to do what the real military does
and implement transport vehicles for ground troops. Another is simply to accept a
certain amount of distortion and create jets that fly only four or five times as fast as
people walk (
StarCraft
uses this trick). As long as the jet is the fastest thing in the
game, it doesn't really matter how much faster it is; the strike-and-retreat tactic that
jets are good at will still work. Setting these values is all part of balancing the game,
as Chapter 9, “Gameplay,” discusses in more detail.
FIGURE 4.5
In
Age of Empires,
the
buildings are only a
little taller than the
people.
BOUNDARIES
In board games, the edge of the board is the edge of the game world. Because com-
puters don't have infinite memories, the physical dimension of a computer game
world must have an “edge” as well. However, computer games are usually more
immersive than board games, and they often try to disguise or explain away the
fact that the world is limited to help maintain the player's immersion.
In some cases, the boundaries of a game world arise naturally, and we don't have
to disguise or explain them. Sports games take place only in a stadium or an arena,
and no one expects or wants them to include the larger world. In most driving
games, the car is restricted to a track or a road, and this, too, is reasonable enough.
Setting a game underground or indoors helps to create natural boundaries for the
game world. Everyone expects indoor regions to be of a limited size, with walls
