blog 1 Game mechanics

ludology

Game mechanics

Today we studied part of the mechanics of a game which was the ratio of the hits and what variables will be involved, what types or randomisers and what uncertainties will challenge the player. We began by first leaning what games would be random and what would have uncertainties in them we started off with basic board games some examples of board games that are completely random are games such as snakes and ladders games like this are random because they all involve dice or a die this will mean the outcome from the dice will be completely random if it is a fair dice there are also other randomisers such as a simple deck of cards. Other games like chess, checkers and even connect 4 are not random they are uncertain because you may no where your opponent will move or you may not but you still have an idea. After we had covered this we began to apply these variables to fps games an example of this is when a player raises his gun and aims at an opponent to shoot what means you will hit him this all depends on many different things like hit zones, the spread of the bullets, damage against the opponent and there health and these things and more will be calculated by the time your bullets hit or miss the opponent and will decide whether you have killed him. After we understood some of the factors that go into the mechanics of the game we was asked to come up with our own ways of making in our own little games a decider that will tell you whether you have hit and missed and then to go onto things like damage and health points. After i did this i found made my own basic decider by compensating for hit points by giving monsters/ players armour variables and damage variables all from a dice throw which will be completely random so this is my basic idea of how in my basic board game combat will be decided i will try make it a simple and easy to understand as possible i will also include a key at the bottom of the page for help so prepare for the cliche dungeons and dragons dice rolling madness. 

 

My Battle Theory

   Basically in my game combat will be decided by dice throws the players level and equipment will also play a part in combat but lets just stick with the basic system for the moment.

 

All players on the game have a set amount of health for there level say a level 1 player has 50 health then he levels up and now he has 75 health this is also true for enemies a weak level one enemy will have only 25 health points so now you understand the health system you have to understand the armour system.

 

This is when dice begin to enter my game because although armour will have a base armour rating it can be added to by rolling a dice. if you roll a 1 on the dice you will get plus 10 armour, roll a 2 and you will get plus 20, a 3 plus 30 you see were this is going. so lets say your player has some nice leather armour which has a base armour rating of 10 so your player has his health and his armour you then roll the dice and say you get a 3 your armour will get a 30 point boost giving it a total armour value of 40 points simple right ? But this isn't it enemies will also have armour the same way you have so say you see a enemy that has leather armour you will roll the dice to decide his total armour rating. After this is done you can begin to attack each other.

 

But before you try kill each other you should know what armour actually does armour will half attack damage until you get rid of all your opponents armour points and then you can start attacking his health which will do full damage.

 

Time for the fun 'imma kick your ass part' the combat in my game will be decided in a similar way to finding out armour rating basically you roll to discover what amount of damage you will do to each other same as the armour your weapon will have a base damage value which will be added to so if your player has a basic iron short sword which does 10 damage you can roll a 6 and you will get plus 60 damage points for that attack so you could maybe depending on his armour hit him with 70 points of damage which could kill him giving you those tasty experience orbs to level up.

 

So here is a quick portion of what should be going on in your head and in the game I tested this myself so in this i could win or lose it depends what the dice roll. (writing in brackets should be what you are thinking like the maths in your head for armour and damage values ) writing outside will be game play like dice rolls.

 

Your player is level 5 with 75 health points, an iron longsword with a base damage of 15 and leather armour with a base rating of 20

 

and you encounter a level 3 enemy with 25 health points, an iron longsword with a base damage of 15 and light leather armour with a base value of 15

 

Battle Begins

 

Player rolls for armour points and rolls a 2 (so my armour had 20 points plus another 20 is 40 points in total so basically 20+20 easy)

 

now enemy rolls for armour and gets a 2 also (so now the enemy has a 35 armour rating 20+15= 35)

 

now player rolls for his attack and rolls a 4 (ok so my sword had 15 damage now it has 55 damage for this attack)

 

The player hits his attack and does 27 damage (ok so i hit him with 55 damage points but because he had armour the damage was halved leaving him with still full health but leaving him with only 8 armour left)

 

enemy rolls for attack and gets a 6 (enemy now has a total attack of 75 points)

 

the enemy hits doing a total of 38 damage ( i had a total of 40 armour now I'm left with 2)

 

player rolls for attack and gets a 3 (15+30=45)

 

the player hits with total damage of 23 (my damage is still halved even though i destroyed his armour on this roll)

 

enemy is now left with 10 health points

 

enemy rolls dice for damage and gets 3 (15+30= 45 45 halved = 23 do he has done 23 damage to me)

 

enemy hit with 23 damage leaving the player only 54 health points

 

player rolls dice for damage gets a 5 ( 15+50=65)

 

player hits with 65 damage (because enemy now has no armour rating)

 

the enemy is killed and the player wins the battle (dem experience orbs)

 

Conclusion

So basically that is my very simple randomising method to have a fun type of board game rpg with your friends this could easily become very complicated by adding more weapons with different traits say a spear could ignore armour or i could even add magic into the game so fire attacks would become available and many more elemental powers but with this you have to change the game so much just by adding magic you have to have a mana bar which will have to be decided by more dice trows or different types of dice completely but it would not end there you would then have to have magically imbued weapons that would do elemental damage to enemies but then you would have to have magic armour to counterbalance that. Basically with these types of games adding one thing can make everything more complicated but it will all be decided by the same thing we spoke about today in class it will all be decided by the roll of a dice or in other games the pick of a card so this has been my take on today's work on game mechanics i hope you enjoyed the read and understood the combat of my board game.