Core Mechanics - Fundamentals of Game Design - page 323

3. Using a real-time strategy game or construction and management simulation of
your choice (or one that your instructor assigns), write a short paper describing its
resources, sources, drains, converters, production mechanisms that are not sources
(if any), and traders (if any). Note whether the game has any feedback loops or
mutual dependencies; if so, indicate whether any mechanism exists to break a pos-
sible deadlock.
4. Define a mechanic for a trap that harms a character when it detects the charac-
ter's presence and then must wait for a period before it can detect another
character. Document the condition that triggers the trap (the nature of the sensing
mechanism), the character attribute(s) that change when the trap is triggered, and
the length of the reset wait period. Incorporate one or more nonuniform random
numbers to determine the amount of damage done and explain how they are com-
puted. Indicate what states the trap may be in and what causes it to change from
state to state. Include a vulnerability in the sensing mechanism that could either
(a) set off the trap without harming a character or (b) allow a character to move
within range of the trap's sensor mechanism without setting it off. (For example, a
pressure-sensor in the floor would not go off if the character weighed less than a
certain amount.) Propose a means by which a clever player could exploit this vul-
nerability to avoid the trap.
Design Practice QUESTIONS
1. What entities and resources will be in the game? Which resources are made up
of individual entities (such as a resource of airplanes consisting of individual planes
that the computer can track separately) and which are described by mass nouns
(such as water, which cannot be separated into discrete objects)?
2. What unique entities will be in the game?
3. Which entities will actually include other entities as part of their definition?
(Remember that an avatar may have an inventory, and an inventory contains
objects.)
4. What attributes describe each of the entities that you have identified? Which
attributes are numeric and which are symbolic?
5. Which entities and resources will be tangible, and which will be intangible?
Will any of them change from one state to another, like the resources in Age of
Empires ?
6. What mechanics govern the relationships among the entities? Remember that
any symbolic entity requires mechanics that determine how it can get into each of
its possible states and how other entities interact with each possible state. Which
entities have their own mechanics connected only with themselves?