Re: Gaming Engines

From: graham@DELETETHISaffordable-leather.co.uk

Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 00:19:45 +0000

Hi There,

On Tue, 24 Oct 2000 16:18:43 GMT, MindShift Design
<teammsd@mindshiftdesign.com> wrote:

>we're thinking about creating a PBM gaming engine that will have
>gaming plug-in modules (holding the game rules). The game engine
>handles the processing of data inbound and outbound (orders and
>results, as well as interfacing with any database that's required).
>We see this as the way to go forward for developing our games.
>n some ways it's like the scripting system that LucasArts and other
>companies use to create games.

This "object oriented" approach to PBM programing is something that
has been considered quite a few times before now (including by me!),
but there are quite a few problems.

The main of these is that it's very easy to end up with the PBM
equivalent of the 2D platform games which used to appear with such
frequency on home computers and many of the recent first person games
now, when it comes down to it, they're all virtually identical games
just with different characters and backgrounds and weapons.

What you tend to end up with is unit <name>, attack: x, defence: y,
move: z, carry: a, breed: b, etc and possibly a couple of "special
features" which are already programed in.

Because the game is designed for multiple players what you can't do is
have the sort of problem solving "if, then" logic of a game like, say,
the Monkey Island series.

Your next problem is that you'd need multiple engines and each engine
would have to be specific to a game type.

Your inputs and outputs would be very different between, say a PBM
football game and a wargame or between a car racing game and a single
character exploration game, so you'd either have to create something
with *incredibly* generic types and output or

Once you've got past this, you then need some form of engine that
would be able process this data in a relevant form. Consider the
processing required for the games mentioned above, you would need
something entirely different for each.

I'm not saying it's not possible to do, but if you don't want a whole
lot of churned out clones, you've got a lot of work on your hands!

Cheers,
Graham.

References

Gaming Engines
MindShift Design <teammsd@mindshiftdesign.com>
Tue, 24 Oct 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

Gaming Engines
MindShift Design <teammsd@mindshiftdesign.com>
Tue, 24 Oct 2000 00:00:00 +0000