iPhone Game Development - Chris Craft [94]
Understanding Game Design: Competition
It is human nature for people to want to compete. Every day we are faced with a desire to compete. Since the dawn of time we have been in competition for food, water, and mates. Think of all the things you and others compete for:
Basic needs (food, clothing, and shelter)
Money and wealth
Pride and prestige
Fame and popularity
Notoriety and attention
High scores and bragging rights
Competition in gaming is a combat between two or more players. Players want to prove they are better than their rivals. Victory is about pride—we all want bragging rights! Your games should appeal to our instinctive desire to compete.
Practice makes perfect
Competitive games should pave a path that allows players to increase their skill level the more they play the game. This encourages players to play your game longer and harder to get an edge over their opponents. In air hockey, for example, players learn the sweet spots to bounce the puck off of. They learn how to fake out the opponent and make more accurate shots at the goal the more they play. However, the better you become, the better your opponent becomes at defending against you. The stroke of the paddle gives a visual cue to the direction it will send the puck when it strikes. At some point players will learn all the tricks and cues and gain the agility necessary to be an expert at your game. The key to making your game great is to create enough depth that players will not reach that skill level until they have spent many, many hours immersed in your game. If mastery is easily obtained, gamers will grow bored quickly, leave you a bad review, and move on to the next challenge.
Extending the learning curve
Some games, like air hockey, have a natural learning curve. Just mastering the controls and learning the physics take time. In other games you need to build the learning curve in yourself. In order to build new challenges and content that extend the learning curve, we can mimic characters of naturally occurring paths of learning.
In most sports you learn to play both offense and defense. Air hockey is no different—you are on offense if you are in control of the puck and on defense if you are not. For every offensive action there should be a defensive action against it. Each offensive technique should be more difficult to learn and the counter should be equally difficult to learn. Offensive actions should provide cues when they are invoked even if the cue is artificial. If cues are not provided, the defensive player cannot prepare or learn to defend against the move. Just by using this simple technique, you now have a path to systematically add depth and interest to your game.
Let's add some depth to our air hockey example. Many fighting games have special moves that unleash powerful or magical attacks that level the opponent. In many instances these moves are triggered by memorized controller patterns. One way to translate this to the iPhone is to fire off attacks when special gestures are drawn to the touchscreen. For example, when a player draws a “V” shape (Figure 7.1), a stun blast is fired from your puck (Figure 7.2). If the blast strikes the opponent, he is immobilized for a few moments, giving the attacker a free shot at the goal.
FIGURE 7.1
Mock-up of player drawing a stun blast gesture
FIGURE 7.2
Mock-up of stun blast being fired
If a player draws a greater than symbol (>) (Figure 7.3), a confusion blast is fired from the puck (Figure 7.4). If this blast strikes the opponent, the puck moves opposite to where the player directs it for a few seconds. Notice that the confusion blast is a more difficult stroke than the stun blast. Also, the confusion blast fans out a little, making it more difficult to avoid.
FIGURE 7.3
Mock-up of player drawing a confusion blast gesture
FIGURE 7.4
Mock-up of confusion blast being fired
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