I have not actually played this game yet, but one of the most interesting things that happen in this game is the fact that the players have control over the rules. Board games have a sense of fun that happens outside of the limitations created by the game’s designers.
It is really hard for game designers to create every possibility in a digital game while you can trade abstract things in a physical game. However handing over all control to the players opens up possibilities again!
Here is a technique that I have been wanting to use in my projects for a while: Bitwise Tile Generation. It’s usefull to add some flavor to your world/level.
Basically you use a full tileset for the grass or platformer tiles in your game and you calculate if there are similair tiles next to each other to change the sprites. If you don’t have to calculate corners you just have to check 4 tiles each time for 16 different combinations.
Bitwise Tile Generation
If you only have a tile on top you will use sprite 1 in the middle. But it you have a tile to the right and on the bottom you would use sprite 6. There are 16 different combinations from no tiles (0) to all tiles(15).
The reason why this technique is called Bitwise is because you’re basically using bits to check if there is a tile or not. 0000 translates to 0 or no tiles. And 0001 would be a tile on the top and so on.
But what if you would like to check the corner tiles as well?
Bitwise Tiles with Corners
Wel you just need to use more bits to check every possible combination. With corners you will have a full byte with 256 possible combinations from 00000000 to 11111111.
It’s a very usefull technique to use and it saves you a lot of time compared to building the world manually!
Source/Extra links:
Saltgames blog: http://www.saltgames.com/2010/a-bitwise-method-for-applying-tilemaps/Flashpunk Forum post: http://developers.useflashpunk.net/t/flixel-compatible-tilemap-autoset/1736
Ever since software like Steam and Desura has been gaining users the PC-Gaming Market has been growing once again. Even though we have a lot of users and a growing variety of things available there are a few things we don’t have. And one of those is a standard for save files.
On my own PC there are a few examples of different locations:
– Its own folder in My Documents (Reus)
– Its own folder in My Documents inside a folder named after the developer (Dungeons of Dreadmor)
– The folder “Saved Games” in My Documents (JamesTown)
– The folder “SavedGames” in My Documents (Rogue Legacy, DLC Quest, DustAET)
– The folder “my games” in My Documents (Terraria, Gnomoria, Darksiders)
In my opinion one specific folder needs to be used and it might even be useful to create a new Documents location within Windows 7/8 for this so the My Documents folder won’t be cluttered. The SavedGames folder seems like a good location to store all your save files because its name clearly communicates the location.
Another good option is “my games”, its name isn’t as clear but it has been used as a save file location for games since at least the early 00’s. Age of Mythology was released in 2002 and it uses the “my games” folder as a save file location.
On the other hand Age of Empires II HD edition has its save files in its installation location so it is safe to say that the same save file location will be used for the upcoming Age of Mythology extended edition will store its save files in the same manner.
A staple of games with crafting as a major focus these days is mining. Mining is often done by finding a location with specific metal ores and gathering them. After that you smelt them into bars and you can further refine those bars into a variety of equipment, weapons or accessories.
Stone tools are older than the human race as we know it. But using stone as a material in tools like they’re presented in games is still a bit unrealistic. Because of the small contact area on a pickaxe you will apply a lot of force on stone which causes it to break. But stone is not a material which can easily be shaped in such a way and it’s very likely to break if used as a material for a modern tool.
For a more realistic experience in games it might be interesting to present stone tools as their logical counterpart the prehistoric tools.
A logical progression for metal materials is needed because the materials will have the same progression as the equipment made from the materials. But this isn’t always realistic since some metals like silver and gold are a lot softer which makes it easier for them to be processed into detailed accessories.
Instead of a progression system going from iron to silver it would be better to add a way to make alloys early one so bronze could be introduced. Bronze is an Alloy from copper and iron which would add extra uses to those basic materials. Copper and Iron are normally easy to find as well because they are low tier materials so adding extra uses should make it more interesting to find a metal vein.