Strategy Games - Fundamentals of Game Design - page 445

inducers or inducing the phase reversers to get our heroes out of a jam. If you really
want to make a self-consistent SF universe, you'll have to think hard about its tech-
nology. Alternatively, you can go for humor and make a game like Strange Adventures
in Infinite Space , a combination strategy/spaceship simulator full of goofy weapons
and odd features that aren't meant to be taken seriously.
Terminolog y also presents a problem in science fiction settings. Because the weap -
ons and units don't really exist, the player doesn't have any idea what they can do.
No one can tell from the names alone whether a plasma rifle is more or less power-
ful than a photon blaster . This is one of the very few weaknesses in Sid Meier's Alpha
Centauri : The player either spends a lot of time looking things up in reference
topics or learns by trial and error. When players encounter an unfamiliar weapon
for the first time, it's a good idea to indicate its power or value by some visual sign.
In fact, this advice applies to just about any game world that you can't be sure the
player knows much about.
Future settings have the same scale problems as modern battlefields. StarCraft han-
dles this by simply stating that flying vehicles are only about five times as fast as
foot infantry; if the foot soldiers walk at 3 miles an hour, the jet fighters fly at 15! It
is grossly unrealistic, but it works. The aircraft are still the fastest vehicles in the
game, so their role as hit-and-run units remains consistent even though they are
slower than they realistically should be.
Fantasy Settings
The major distinction between science fiction worlds and fantasy worlds is that
the former characterize their imaginary weapons as technological while the latter
characterize them as magical. Fantasy worlds, often set in a quasi-medieval envi-
ronment, also tend to place more emphasis on close-range and hand-to-hand
combat (swords and arrows, not cruise missiles) and to eschew vehicles such as air-
planes and tanks. Fantasy combat should not resemble modern combat too closely;
that's not what the players want. The Warcraf t series is by far the most successful
group of strategy games set in a fantasy world, and well worth studying. But it
would be nice to see a lot more games set in worlds other than northern European
mythology. Skip the elves and trolls and look to the folk tales of India, Africa, the
Americas, and Australasia for inspiration.
The Presentation Layer
Strategy games often have extremely complicated core mechanics. Consequently,
the design of the presentation layer is critical, even more so if the game is in real
time and the player is under time pressure. The interface must present complicated
information in clear, well-organized ways so that the player can grasp it easily. If
you don't design the presentation well, the large amount of information available
can make the game overwhelming, especially to inexperienced players.