Ludamad

I am currently programming a side-scrolling RTS (not the topic of this post, mind you) and I have recently hit a cross roads, so I was wondering if I could obtain some insight from my fellow programmers.

Renewable resources can easily be introduced into the game as a limiting factor on the speed by which a player produces something, introducing time management. They are usually easy to implement and do not disturb game balance due to their predictable nature. So far I have decided to have a few of these in my game.

Now, a game design issue comes up when I ask myself "Should an RTS have completely  non-renewable resources?" This can either mean you have a lump of, say, gold at the beginning and must spend it wisely with getting nothing else, or you to mine it, its all the same in the big picture.

Now the most obvious con to this gameplay element is that there will be a theoritical point where the player will run out, and not be able to do anything needing this resource. I feel that this adds a bit of challenge to the game, but it is definitely not always appropriate. In a normal RTS there will be units dying, and the resources spent on that unit will be gone forever. Assuming that both sides are actively fueling they're armies, there will be a point where there will not be anymore resources to fuel a new battle. This is not necessarily negative, as it requires a lot of looking forward, and planning. You need to weigh the risk of attacking now versus keeping the resources, building a cheap unit here and there versus saving up for a better one.

In the same case, with a renewing amount of resources, the game runs the risk of never ending (a small risk), but there is the knowledge that if the attack fails the player can go on the immediate defensive and restock on resources.

With lengthy levels and scenarios, it is important to keep the players getting a steady amount of resources. If they get all the resources to early, there is the risk of a quick rush and anti-climatic ending, if there are too few resources the game will be cut short when the players run out and are forced to deal with what units they have. Resources that renew at a fixed rate are a good solution for this, as resource management is still crucial (whoever has the more efficient army will still have an edge), but less restricted. Resources that renew at an increasing rate (eg if there is a building that produces this resource that the player can continually make) cause a problem, as there tends to be more resources than the player can use, and there is little problem in creating an inefficent army, which in turn lowers the strategic depth.

Lets take an example from Age of Empires (the second one specifically). The farms in the game are a semi-renewable source of food, and seeing as they need wood they are practically renewable as wood is very abundant. From personal experience, in games that take long I tend to progressively make more workers, and more farms, because of that the amount of food I get increases at a faster and faster rate, and seeing as workers only need food I make more of those using that food. The end result? In a game that took about 2 hours, I had around 200,000 food - way more than I could ever use. This I find to be a design flaw. In addition, the markets allowed me to trade it into other resources, allowing me virtually infinite resources, I also no longer had to worry about anything else. Needless to say I won that game with a bulky, clumsy army that required no thinking about to make.

A fix for this would be to have a supply of food that continuously grew back - which is very realistic, but that you couldnt plant just anywhere (special spots only). This would make a cap on the food production. Another solution for the long game problem would be to have a lot of the resource, that is continuously further and further away. This is fine on big maps, but has some virtues to it. For example, a siege works quite nice because the player is stuck in their base, unable to make more resources, while you mine the others. This is a logical, but many stepped route to victory that emulates real life. The resources can come at a faster rate only if you make a lot of resource gatherers and split them across the map, and traditionally they are quite helpless without guards making it a risky plan. This approach is the most logical, but still holds the problem of resources running out, but this however should be a long way off from the beginning of the game. There is still yet another possible solution, to have the resources not renewable but re-usable. This can be presented in the form of say, having energy required to summon monsters, and when you destroy an enemy monster you get the exact amount of energy the enemy used. This tends to make attacks very risky, as the units you send can not only die,  but fuel the enemy. And, the point of this is that there is a small amount of resources to use, so if no one is attacking it very quickly degenerates into a game where no one can do anything.

That is all I have to say on this matter, I would appreciate your input.

The LudaPuzzle



The basic concept is that you must get rid of all the blocks by clicking on one block, when you click on that one all the ones near it dissapear, too. You can get stuck if you have one lone block (cannot dissapear by itself). At that point you have to press R. I implemented a grid for no reason (Press G if you want it). There is more information on the 64Digits page.

Link here.

# Name: The LudaPuzzle
# Category: Puzzle Game
# Size: About 2 megabytes
# Version: GM 6.1
# Resolution: 512x512
# Changes Resolution: no
# Mulitplayer: No
# Download Link:
Link.

Click the image to access the download page, where you can see the opinions of 64Digits members, and how they rated it.

64Digits cards:
If you've ever played a Trading Card Game, this is similar. The basic idea is to get the opponent to below 0 HP. To do this you must attack him, but he can place cards in the way. You can defeat those cards and inflict a fixed amount of damage, but once they are gone you can attack directly (much like yu-gi-oh). Playing cards costs points, you get 100 points a turn.

So far:
-Basic AI
-Monster Cards
-One object for the whole game
-'Chatbar'
-REZilicious graphics
-Lots of cool stuff

To be added:
-Walking around and facing people
-Different AI complexities
<s>-Script cards (cards that have an effect, do not cost points)</s> Now added!
-AI dying when in negative HPs
-Deck manager
-The rest of the game basically

Contributions:
-REZ for most graphics
-Canadonian for the logo
-JakeX for giving me ideas
-Kenon for something, I guess
-Firebird for something, I guess too.

Controls:
Use both mouse keys and the mouse wheel - nothing else. Right click for menus, left click for selecting and attacking, mouse wheel for scrolling the chatbar.

64Digits.com is the website it is hosted on, you do not need to be familiar with the site to enjoy the game.

Well, I was debating whether or not to put this on the gmc at all, but I decided to put it open source. It is a "Alpha Beta Pruning" system for Tic-Tac-Toe that never loses.

The controls are simple, click the square you want to put an X on

Also:
R = Restart
L = Make computer go (click at the beginning if you want computer to go first)
W = Let the computer take a (bad) guess at who's winning, might improve this later.

The AI itself is just over 100 lines, and is not that complex. I am hoping to use this system for different games, maybe even invent a small board game to test it on.
EDIT:Made it smarter (it was missing some forks it could do).
EDIT: As of yet many people have claimed to win, but they either were lying or admitted they were joking, or even thought they won but didn't
EDIT: For those who want it: exe link
The controls are simple, click the square you want to put an X on

Also:
R = Restart
L = Make computer go (click at the beginning if you want computer to go first)
W = Let the computer take a (bad) guess at who's winning, might improve this later.

The AI itself is just over 100 lines, and is not that complex. I am hoping to use this system for different games, maybe even invent a small board game to test it on.
EDIT:Made it smarter (it was missing some forks it could do).
EDIT: As of yet many people have claimed to win, but they either were lying or admitted they were joking, or even thought they won but didn't
EDIT: For those who want it: [url="http://www.64digits.com/users/ludamad/bv.zip"]exe link

Can anyone make a parachute the guy in my avatar can wear? I need it swaying back and forth possibly.
Size: at least 32*32
Credit: possibly if wanted
For the game in my sig... thanks!