WEEK8: TEST

This week I really wanted to crack having systems that interact with each other. I found this great presentation by Randy Smith and Harvey Smith and decided to copy the example they gave and use it as a small test project.

Even though it is very simple it's amazing the effect just having a few interacting systems can have. It makes everything feel so much more alive.

Once I got that example up and running I set about altering it and working on my own version. I ended up doing a lot more planning up front, which really helped. It's surprisingly difficult to come up with a simple, but still sufficiently complex system. I found a very useful exercise was to break everything down into Nouns (game objects) and Verbs (actions). I have uploaded a screen shot of the document I used for planning.

This week I have also been thinking about they games I really enjoy and what they have in common. It's one of the main reasons I wanted to really focus on games interacting systems this week. I'm going to write an article that goes into more detail later on but for now, the games I like tend to feature:

• A Player Toolkit With a Variety of Functions (not just murder)
• Short Session Based
• High Vulnerability to Enemies
• Highly Hostile Environment
• No Upgrades Between Sessions
• Single Mistakes Often Mean Failure
• High Quantity of Interacting Systems

Overall it was a really useful exercise as I would implement a change or additional actor and have no idea how it was going to pan out. Even though the scene was set up the same way by altering my actions as a player there was a different chain reaction, which was really exciting and made me think i might be headed in the right direction.