Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
practice before playing against real people in online tournaments.
Quake III Arena
contains a great deal of support for bots, and a number of third-party tools, such as
BotStudio
, have been built to help players create them.
DANGERS OF ALLOWING MODS
Mods bring with them certain risks. When you allow players to modify your game, you
risk the possibility that they will create a mod that includes material you would never use
yourself: pornographic or racist content, for example. You could find people distributing
a highly offensive variant of your game but one that still displays your company's name
and logo when it starts up. The public might be sophisticated enough to realize that a
game designer shouldn't be held responsible for the contents of homemade mods, but
then again it might not be. The general public doesn't know much about video game
development, and the politicians who seek to regulate video games know even less.
Summary
Players love to express themselves and to build things. This chapter looked at options
for self-expression through avatar selection, customization, and creation. It also
examined both freeform and constrained creative play and discussed some of the
different kinds of constraints that you may impose on a player's creativity to pro-
duce challenges. We noted some options for permitting storytelling play and ended
with a brief discussion about allowing players to modify your game. With these
tools in hand, you should be able to add support for creative play to your game.
Design Practice
EXERCISES
1.
Using a game that you are familiar with and that permits avatar customization
or construction (or one that your instructor assigns), identify and document those
functional and cosmetic attributes of the avatar that the player may modify. In the
case of the functional attributes, indicate how they affect the gameplay.
2.
Think of an idea for a game that permits the player to construct something you
have not seen in commercial games (no cities, buildings, or vehicles). Assume that
you will constrain the player's abilities via an economy but allow him to earn new
tools and features for his construction over time. Design a set of elementary parts
from which the item may be constructed, and specify a price for each part. Include
a number of upgrades
—
more expensive parts that replace cheaper versions. Write a
short paper explaining the domain in which the player will be creating, and supply
your list of parts, giving them in the order in which the player will earn the ability
to buy them (cheapest to most expensive). Also indicate in a general way how the
