Настроение:	accomplished
Музыка:	Jamie McMenamy - Elven Warrior's Crypt
Entry tags:	gamedev

The Spell of Mastery Progress
Solved one of the harder game design problems I faced so far.
It was: how can one reliable place guards in the game.

That is in fact a very important problem.
Guards can be used to implement the "pick your fights" gameplay.
As well as to introduce a natural grace period,
when they guard a bridge connecting two players.
That is a major part of Heroes of Might & Magic games.
In HoMM it was easy, since the game is turn based.
And the combat happens in a separate area.
That also allowed HoMM games implement stealth skill perfectly.

But what about other games?
Player could just run past all guards in Baldur's Gate.
And Warcraft III had the same issue.
And could player agro away the guards too.
Or the guards could be pursuing the player indefinitely.
I remember a lich in BG2 could pursue player
even to the areas in different cities.

But these games incentivized player to murder everyone.
So there was no reason be stealthy or diplomatic.
Other games tried to solve it differently.
Say Warhammer Shadow of the Horned Rat had engagement mechanics.
The original XCOM had aliens moving between predefined waypoints.
The Dungeon Keeper triggered guards moved towards the players HQ,
and there was no way to see them before it is too late.
I.e. no pick your fights gameplay or any warning.

But ultimately in most games guards are broken.
Still in Warcraft III it was hard to use the guards
as a reliable map design element.

Anyway I found a solid solution for my game,
due to a set of design decision I'm making.
It should also solve a lot of other issues.

So what is the hardest thing about gamedev?
My answer would be "the game design."
Everything else usually has obvious solutions.
Game design is similar to theorem solving.
To be able to solve theorem you need a path to it.
Which one usually finds by being lucky.
Even if one understand the basic elements well.
I.e. I understood how guards works since the beginning.
But I seen no way to implement them nicely.

I had the area they guard.
I had the guard zone around them.
I had them chasing the player.
But it was just not coming in together nicely.
Since I was missing the puzzle pieces.
Had disallowed guards to move,
player could just use ranged attacks on them.
Had I allowed the guards to move,
the player could just agro them or use
a faster unit to bypass them.

The game design is full of such puzzles.
You go on research, enumerate,
make tables, and then discard them.
Then you try to build chains, starting
from the goal. And you also have to see
how it will fail without actually wasting
time the to implement it.

So yeah, game design is the most math
heavy part in gamedev.
You don't have to prove anything about
matrices or other well known tools.
But you have to prove a lot about
any unusual game mechanic you include.
And design is the only truly important part.
Your game may have no graphics.
But it must have gamification,
good enough to express your ideas.