In this lesson you'll learn about some of the useful tricks of the trade when designing games - that is, how to make the same old stuff new and improved by adding technology or magic to a game. You will also learn about research models, which is how all that technology or magic can be introduced into the game during play, plus how special abilities can benefit a design by adding distinction to each player's position.
The link below is the homework assignment due at the beginning of the next class session.
Be sure to study up for the second exam next week! It is worth 30 points and focuses primarily on the material from weeks 4, 5, and 6 (including the required reading sections for those weeks on this web site) along with some review questions from previous lessons.
These links feature the supplemental material that you are responsible for knowing before the second exam (that takes place at the beginning of Week 8). Be sure to click on every link in this section!
Game Component: Twilight Imperium 2 Technology Tree
This downloadable MS-Word .doc file is a complete, full-color technology tree that I made as a player aid for Twilight Imperium 2. It's a complete schematic of what can be accomplished with what other pre-requisites.
Game Component:
Axis & Allies Technology + Research &
Development
Game Component:
Attack! Expansion Technology + Research &
Development
Game Component:
Hitler's War
Research & Development Model
Research models can run the gamut from simple to complex. Above are a trio of games who approach the problems of technology, research and development during World War 2 in their own ways. Some of their approaches are similar and some are different, and they range in complexity (remember the first rule of game design?) from a simple design-for-effect method in Axis & Allies to a more design-for-cause approach in Hitler's War. Comparing and contrasting all three of these is a lesson in game design by itself.
This supplemental link is well worth reading, particularly if you're making an analog game for your Graded Course Project Game.
Article: The Fine Art of Play Balance by James Protnow
What does it mean for a videogame to be balanced or imbalanced? How does imbalance in a game affect the players? James Portnow looks at balance in Oblivion, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft and other games.
Article: Chopping Down the Tech Tree, Part 1 by Ethan Watrall
Article: Chopping Down the Tech Tree, Part 2 by Ethan Watrall
Despite the increasing complexity of so-called "God Games," the model of human cultural evolution that these games present is still overwhelmingly simple. Ethan Watrall, an archaeologist by training, takes a look at the process of technological development in human societies, and examines how several key variables might be used to bring realism to the God Game genre.
Article: Let's Put the Magic Back in Magic by Ernest Adams
Adams wants you to rethink the implementation of magic in games. Heed his call to get the numerical data out of the supernatural and inject some good old-fashioned superstition and emotion.
Bibliography: General Course References
These are the games that we played and analyzed in class this week. If you want more information about them, see the links below:
COSMIC
ENCOUNTER, designed in 1973, was first published in 1977 and has
remained a cult gaming classic ever since. We use it in class as a lesson in
special powers with some added random events (as a preview to next week's
lesson). Cosmic Encounter has been republished in so many versions
and languages for so long, and won so many awards, that you will be amazed; to
read the game's long, long history
click here (and for a great telling of the company's history and the
games created by the makers of Cosmic Encounter,
click here.
A central information exchange on Cosmic Encounter can be found if you click here.
For a copy of an interesting late-version set of rules, click here.
Ultra Cool: To play a version of Cosmic Encounter right now, online, for free, click here. Go on... what are you waiting for?
