1.2 Cut Down Game Engine

Machines 2 – Cut Down Game Engine: Game Design

A game design is an essential tool in any game development.
1. The designers use it to flesh out the one pager/short version into a complete set of what they want.
2. Essential use cases give everybody an idea of the feel of what they are developing. They can be a little dry but they will enable people to work things out. At this stage “paper” design can kick in. During Machines 1 we actually built ourselves a 3D playing board with some little pieces and worked out some of the core mechanics. It works for some things – not necessarily advocating it for all games.
3. The “Tricky” problems that require up front proof of concept work can at the very least be identified. During one MMO that I was working on we used this time to develop the core database connectivity, network layer and think about resolution of the world.
4. Milestones can be identified and agreed with publishers and development team in general. For example lead artist can look at number of scale of animations required, do we need skinned characters (skinning takes more time but is pretty much essential nowadays).

In our development for this web site we are NOT going to produce the full set of ideas put forwards in the one page game design. Why? Mainly because I have certain key things I want to address and I’m happy to make compromises in the attention to detail and depth of implementation to ensure that they happen.

Basics

1. Environment

1.1. The environment shall consist of 3D planetscapes (general case).
1.2. The user will be able to fly around and view a full 6-axis degrees of freedom. (I.e. up and down).
1.3. The landscape will be fully lit with a “sun” but will also support “point” source lights such as explosions.
1.4. The terrain will be partially deformable. See buildings.
1.5. The environment will support rivers and other features (seas) that will reflect the static landscape.

2. Buildings

2.1. Buildings may be placed anywhere on the landscape that is currently visible to a friendly unit. See Fog of War.
2.2. Placing a building costs 5 BMUs as a “one off” fee.
2.3. Buildings are constructed by constructors. They start at 0% complete. A building may not be used until it is at 100% complete.
2.4. A completed building may have one or more of the following roles:
2.4.1. BMU generator. Constructs BMUs from nothing. In Machines 1 the POD fulfilled this role. BMU manufacture rate is in BMUs per second.
2.4.2. BMU extractor (Mine). Extracts BMUs from one or more discovered mineral deposit sites. See Mineral Deposits. All mineral deposits within range may be extracted from. When the user selects a BMU extractor the range will be displayed and any mineral sites actively connected to shown as an animated indicator. Mines may not be constructed too close to existing Smelters. Mines extraction rate is expressed in BMUs/sec. They have a maximum BMUs that they may extract and bring to the surface. If this limit is reached the Mine will stop extracting until some of the excess is taken away. Transporters arriving at the Mine pickup pads will pickup to their maximum capacity and then take it to the nearest smelter.
2.4.3. Smelter. A transporter can deposit BMUs at a smelter where they are converted to usable BMUs. New smelters constructed will force all Transporters to re-evaluate which smelter is closest and will re-route appropriately.
2.4.4. Factories
2.4.4.1. Have a list of machines that they will build. Only researched machines will be displayed in the UI.
2.4.4.2. Build at a rate specified in BMUs/sec. If not enough BMUs are available then no manufacturing will take place.
2.4.4.3. Factories may be prioritised.
2.4.4.3.1. 0 – paused – will not contruct.
2.4.4.3.2. 1 – 1/3 construction rate
2.4.4.3.3. 2 – 2/3 construction rate
2.4.4.3.4. 3 – full construction rate

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