Loot. AndreyGeonya/hull. The Tech of Planetary Annihilation: ChronoCam. Today is an exciting day because I finally get to share the dirty details on some really cool tech written for Planetary Annihilation. If you aren’t familiar with the project it’s an upcoming real-time strategy game that had a wildly successful kickstarter in August 2012 (link) and just entered beta. You can pre-order directly ($40 retail, $60 retail + beta) or via Steam and play on Windows, OS X, or Linux [1]. Here's our awesome beta launch trailer. I’m a programmer at Uber Entertainment working on PA and we’re actually doing quite a few interesting things on the technology front. ChronoCam If a picture is worth a thousand words then a video is even better. The ChronoCam is similar to a replay system except it’s in the live game. If your scout gets destroyed and you weren’t paying attention you can use the ChronoCam to find out how it died.
The game engine driving PA is custom code written from scratch [5]. Networking Origins Synchronous Unfortunately there are some downsides. Curves Step. Evaluating Game Mechanics For Depth. [Former Insomniac designer Mike Stout takes shares a useful rubric for judging the depth of play mechanics, including checks for redundant ones, in this in-depth design article, which contains examples from the Ratchet & Clank series.] Often, in game development, a design that looks great on paper doesn't turn out as well in practice as you'd hoped.
It comes across as "shallow" or "flat. " Perhaps play-testers, publishers, or peers describe it as "needing more variety" or as "feeling repetitive. " Every game designer has heard these complaints at one time or another. I've bumped up against problems like this on every game I've ever worked on and there are three ways I like to approach solving them. If the players felt the game overall didn't have enough variety you can add more game mechanics to the game. Buzzwords to watch for: The game is "a one-trick pony," "repetitive," "or needs more variety. " Buzzwords to watch for: A given game mechanic is "too shallow," "too easy," or "flat. " Game design - How do Action RPGs make different weapon types feel unique?