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Game Design Theory / Destroy one at a time, or cascading explosion, which is best?

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bruce3371
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2010 21:58
I have 24 stasis tubes, each with a zombie inside. Part of the story is that these need to be destroyed. When each tube is destroyed, a zombie appears and ragdolls to the floor, dead. I have all the scripting in place for the appearing zombies etc.

But my question is this; As far as game design/gameplay is concerned, what would be the best way of destroying the stasis tubes? Either:

1, make the player destroy them one at a time (there are 24 of them!). The pros of this would be that it would be easier to implement in the game, and could extend the gameplay. The cons would be that it could become monotonous for the player.

Or:

2, make the player throw a switch or destroy a control panel, this then causes all the stasis tubes to be destroyed in a cascade. The pros of this would be that it would look quite spectacular, and be quicker for the player to achieve. The cons are that it would be more complicated for me to script, and all those cascading explosions could make the game lagg.

So what do people think?

I game therefore I am.
The Zoq2
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2010 23:09
Number 2

Srry about my english im from sweeden
BearCDP
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Posted: 24th Aug 2010 00:41 Edited at: 24th Aug 2010 00:42
I agree with Zoq2. Preferably, I'd try to go for the option in which you shoot a control panel or flammable object and then cascade the explosions. You could try optimizing them by making the explosions a special case in which you do less work per effect.

Reduce the particles/whatever effects you have fire when a zombie tube blows up, and also think about not playing one sound effect per explosion, but instead just have a few different explosion sounds in a row and stagger their playback. Or, if your game has timing, play back the explosion sound as a single audio file if it's too much of a pain to figure out programmatic timing. You'll have less effects per tube, but the sum of it all will make up for it.

That's if you have performance issues

Check out this WIP flash game from the Global Game Jam!
bruce3371
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Posted: 24th Aug 2010 01:34
Thanks for your input guys, I'll go with option 2 then!

Now I just need to figure out how to implement it lol

I game therefore I am.
Van B
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Posted: 24th Aug 2010 17:47
Personally, I would rather have a load of tubes, and shoot them all to hell one by one. It's not like anyone will walk up to each tube 1 by 1 - unless they are all in different rooms, which would be monotomous.

See to me, it sounds like quite good fun to shoot the tube to hell then watch the zombie fall out - I'd do that a few times, then go on a rampage, shooting all the tubes as quickly as I can. I don't think that would get monotonous at all, I find that stuff really helps FPS games to maintain pace. The way I see it though, if you have cool tube smashing, and zombie ragdolls flopping about - let the player see that, and have some fun. FPS games are all about the fun things you can do besides shooting enemies - cinematics are a drag, getting hands on and putting in some work is fun. You have to use these gameplay elements to break up the shooting, and the player has to play them - a cut scene is not a break.

Health, Ammo, and bacon and eggs!
bruce3371
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Posted: 24th Aug 2010 19:01 Edited at: 24th Aug 2010 19:03
Thanks for throwing a spanner in the works Van B!!

But seriously, thanks for your input, it seems that I still have a lot to think about, with things not being as clear-cut as I thought they were.

If I can some up the comments I have had so far;

Whilst shooting stasis tubes one-by-one, might be considered monotonous by some; the idea of watching a zombie flop out of each one, might be considered fun or amusing by others, and will help maintain the pace of the game.

Whilst to some people, a cascading explosion might look spectacular, (although it might cause some lagg depending on the player's hardware); at the same time, the cascading explosion might be seen as cutting out a key gameplay element.

Fair summary?

I game therefore I am.
Diggsey
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Posted: 25th Aug 2010 20:00
Why not have both? You could shoot them all if you wanted or you could destroy some 'cooling system' which causes them to blow up one after the other.

[b]
Libervurto
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Posted: 25th Aug 2010 20:28
Quote: "Why not have both? You could shoot them all if you wanted or you could destroy some 'cooling system' which causes them to blow up one after the other."

Yeah, shooting them individually would be the obvious way to do it but there'd be a secret way to destroy them all simultaneously, I like that idea. If you're not smart enough to figure out the fast way you have to do it the hard way.

BearCDP
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Posted: 25th Aug 2010 20:39
Yes, this new idea is win. I hadn't thought about the perspective that Van B presented. Having more than one way to do it is usually more fun.

Check out this WIP flash game from the Global Game Jam!
bruce3371
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Posted: 25th Aug 2010 23:16
Thanks for the comments.

I definately like the idea of doing both, letting the player either figure out the quick way, or do the more obvious long way.

At the moment however, I am struggling to get the 'cascading explosion' implemented, as I'm having a hard time getting FPSC to run all the events sequentially.

Unfortunately, this means the choice might be taken away from me, I might end up having to do the long, one-at-a-time method by itself.

I game therefore I am.
Libervurto
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Posted: 26th Aug 2010 07:53
I don't know how FPSC scripting works but I'd have thought getting one thing to trigger multiple things was pretty common. I might have a little look on the boards and see how it works and if I can think of a solution.

bruce3371
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Posted: 26th Aug 2010 17:49
@ OBese87, thanks, that would be much appreciated. I've been pulling my hair out over this for 3 days now, as nothing I try seems to want to work!

I game therefore I am.
Libervurto
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Posted: 26th Aug 2010 20:36
Ok, FPSC scripting is weird lol

You could have individual scripts for all the chambers and then one script for the mass destruction. The mass destruction would go something like this (I put in {} things I don't know the script):

If you can use a for loop in scripting you could do this


If destroying the chambers would mess up the individual destruction scripts you could instead make the individual scripts destroy the chambers without a condition and change the state, then you'd have two "control" scripts, one for triggering individual chambers to destruct and the other for mass trigger. The control scripts would call the destruction script it needed. I'm assuming you can call scripts from other scripts?
Here's what I mean if that was confusing:


Libervurto
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Posted: 26th Aug 2010 20:45
I've been looking at this tutorial to help me, it is pretty good.
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&b=23&t=116527&p=0

bruce3371
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Posted: 26th Aug 2010 21:35
Thanks OBese87, they look promising, if they work (and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't), I'll be sure to give you credit for them in the finished game

I game therefore I am.
Dar13
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Posted: 29th Aug 2010 00:30
This is how I'd do it.
Individual tube script(set entity to explodable in properties):

Control center script:


Note: settarget=X sets the entity's target to another entity whose name is X.

These should work, but it's been a while since I've scripted so I'm not sure.


bruce3371
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Posted: 29th Aug 2010 01:39
Thanks Dar13, that's 3 different ideas I've been given to try I guess I'd better get started trying them all out then lol

I game therefore I am.
bruce3371
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Posted: 29th Aug 2010 20:00
Thanks to everyone who commented, particularly those who wrote some scripts for me to try. In the end, I chose to use some scripts that ctm wrote for me in another thread;

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=174661&b=23

I'm currently in the process of implementing his scripts into my game level. At the moment, I am only going down the 'destroy a control panel, trigger a cascading explosion' route. The player won't be able to progress any further through the level, until both cascades are completed, but by the time the level is finished, it should'nt be too difficult to figure out what needs to be done to progress.

I game therefore I am.
Ortu
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2010 08:05
I would probably have several tubes (singles or pairs) earlier in the story, leading up to the main room, which are smashed individually to showcase the flopping detail work, then you get to the big room full of em and blow em all up in a spectacular climax.

Best of both


Libervurto
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2010 20:30
Quote: "I would probably have several tubes (singles or pairs) earlier in the story, leading up to the main room, which are smashed individually to showcase the flopping detail work, then you get to the big room full of em and blow em all up in a spectacular climax.

Best of both "

But then you miss out on feeling clever for finding the trick to mass destruction.

Ortu
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2010 23:13
but, you also risk missing out on it if you don't happen to find/think of said trick and just assume you have to do them one at a time given the chance to do either


bruce3371
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Posted: 4th Sep 2010 04:45
The way the scripts that ctm wrote for me work is, it's impossible to destroy them one at a time anyway, so the player is forced to figure out the puzzle.

The challenge for me now, is how to put clues into the game to help the player figure out what to do.

This is where storytelling comes into play. Do I go down the 'written messages in the hud' route, the 'messages on a pda' route; or the Half-Life style 'NPC-telling-the-player-what-needs-to-be-done-but-not-how-to-do-it' route?!

At the moment, I am biased towards the Half-Life style route. What do other people think?

I game therefore I am.
Ortu
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Posted: 5th Sep 2010 09:42
half-life style is definately the way to go if you want to reward the player with a feeling of accomplishment for solving it.


PVC PIPE DE THIRD
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Posted: 7th Sep 2010 17:51
i would have to go with 1 & 2

1- the game would belonger
2- the game will be short

Peter-V Machado-Cullerton
Libervurto
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Posted: 8th Sep 2010 19:50
If your game is filled with little puzzles you don't have to give much of a clue but if this is a one off thing in your game you will have to help the player a lot.

Is there a time limit for destroying all the containers? Will the zombies wake up if you don't kill them all in time?
I think that would be pretty cool, so if you find the way to sabotage the cooling system they all blow up, if you don't and try destroying them one-by-one the remaining zombies attack you!

bruce3371
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Posted: 9th Sep 2010 01:15
The way I've got the game(s) planned out, it will be a trilogy of games, each with 5 quite big levels. Each of the 3 games which make up the trilogy will have one major puzzle in one of the 5 levels (it will be a different level in each game). The rest of the levels will be about discovering the storyline with some combat to keep the gameplay flowing.

At the moment I am toying with the following idea; When the control panel is destroyed which triggers the cascade, an alarm will go off with a PA announcement along the lines of "Warning, containment failure imminent.....repeat, containment failure imminent".

During the time it takes for the announcment to complete, the player has to get out of the lab, as the cascade does a considerable amount of damage to the player if he hangs around to watch it happen.

Although I used the word zombie to describe the entities inside the stasis tubes, they are in fact genetic experiments, which are being 'grown' inside the tubes. So when the tubes explode and the 'zombie' appears, it is obvious that it hasn't finished 'growing'. Therefore, it can't actually do any damage to the player and just dies straight away. The damage will be done by the exploding tubes themselves.

As for the clues that will be given to the player, I need to have a brainstorming session about that, to see what I can come up with. Any ideas from other people, however, will be seriously considered.

I game therefore I am.
Ortu
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Posted: 10th Sep 2010 03:17
Quote: "damage to the player if he hangs around to watch it happen."


Well, isn't seeing a spectacular chain reaction of destruction the whole point in setting up a cascade? Forcing the player to leave without seeing the results of his work is throwing away a major opportunity to reward the player with a feeling of satisfaction/accomplishment.

You could let them watch and as it's drawing to a close have the explosions in the containment room trigger off a larger systems failure in the structure which gets the player moving under pressure, immediately following their reward scene.


bruce3371
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Posted: 10th Sep 2010 03:48
Quote: "Well, isn't seeing a spectacular chain reaction of destruction the whole point in setting up a cascade? Forcing the player to leave without seeing the results of his work is throwing away a major opportunity to reward the player with a feeling of satisfaction/accomplishment."


That's a good point, I hadn't thought of it like that.

Quote: "You could let them watch and as it's drawing to a close have the explosions in the containment room trigger off a larger systems failure in the structure which gets the player moving under pressure, immediately following their reward scene."


That would actually fit in with the way the game as a whole flows. The next level is a military barracks level, so after the player has caused all that damage in the science level, it will be like he has stirred up a hornet's nest!

I game therefore I am.

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