Game design course homework

[qarl]

I've now completed lesson two of the game design course.

There are some interesting people on the course. Zack Johnson, the guy who runs Kingdom of Loathing is on the course with some other guys from KoL, as is a producer from PopCap.

Homework from lesson 2 included some iterative development on the games we made in lesson one. Here is the

Comments

[anagathic]

With the fire player's actions being completely deterministic, it seems to me that their side of the game will be pretty mechanical.

On a related note, what's the benefit of 'growing' the fire vs 'intensifying' it? Given that burning out a square gives VP to the fire player, and 'intensifying' both generates more fire tokens _and_ spreads them, while growing the fire only intensifies it (and then only a little (though it's just occurred to me that when you say "place a token on any square containing a fire marker", you mean "foreach square containing a fire marker; you may place an additional marker on it", not "pick a square containing a fire marker, place an additional marker on it")).

It would seem to me that the optimal strategy for the fire player in the first couple of turns is to intensify twice, so that at the start of turn three, squares ten and eleven are burnt out, and square nine has four fire tokens in it. The fire chief can't hit spray until the third turn (as they can only move or spray, and need to be in square seven to hit square nine, and can't be there until the end of turn two (and even then can only be there with a one-water load).

If the fire player then intensifies again, they can have squares nine, ten and eleven burnt out, and two fire markers on each of squares eight, seven, six and five (or, possibly better, four markers on each of six and five (or, probably, whichever squares the fire trucks were in, if they have less than four water on them). If you keep doing this, burning out spaces for points and chasing the fire trucks around with four-stack fires, I don't think that there's a lot that the fire chief can do to stop you; they have to choose between mobility and water capacity; if they choose mobility, they can't put the fire out when they get to it, and if they choose water capacity, the fire will total the country-side before it reaches them.

As an additional suggestion; the fire chief should be able to start back-burns; placing one (or maybe two) fire tokens adjacent to a fire truck; if you then add an additional burnout check at the start of the fire player's turn, this will give a disincentive to the fire player to build up four-stacks, as they'd be vulnerable to being put out by back burns.

[jarratt_gray]

Yeah I would have to agree with this. Intensify is an exponential action meaning the fire tokens grow from 1 to 2 to 4 to 8 if you use them like that. Once you hit 8 you want them away from the right and just grow which given that you are over 6 will mean more burnout throughout the game.

Theoretically there needs to be no fire markers on a square for it to actually burnout at the end of the game, so once you reach 8 you can jump 2 spaces and burnout the square in between. Then the next turn you could have up to 16 tokens which should easily allow you to trap a firetruck.

Given that 10vp is the goal why does the game not end then.

I haven't really thought about what the firetruck player can do yet, but I actually suspect that his turn is more deterministic than the fire player, once the fire player has done the obvious first 3 turns.

Also it seems to me that the really interesting part of the game is where the trucks and fire come into contact and the fire is trying to trap the trucks and the trucks are trying to escape and do damage. Perhaps the game should start later, and perhaps the Fire player needs action points or something which can be used to load, move and squirt, because if you can only squirt or move then trapping is so much easier.

[anagathic]

Ah, I hadn't noticed that it was the rightmost non-burntout square that was burntout regardless of its fire status, not the sqaure that had the fire in it (I'd read it as "any square which has six or more fire counters in it is burnt out"). That being the case, I don't see how the fire player can lose the game, as currently written; the fire player just keeps intensifying the fire, with the exponentially increasing fire front staying one step ahead of the burnt-out area. This being the case, play for the fire player goes:

1f- intensify; s11 is burnt out, move 2 fire onto s10
2f- intensify; s10 is burnt out, move 4 fire onto s9
3f- intensify; s9 is burnt out, move 8 fire onto s7. At end of turn, s8 burns out.
3c - At this point, the chief can either have two engines in s6, each with 2 water, or in s8, each with one(lets not consider the s7 option, since the chief loses this turn in that one). Lets assume the former. Lets also assume that they roll straight hits. So turn 3 finishes with 4 fire in s7.
4f - intensify; s7 is burnt out, move 8 fire to s5. s6 burns out at end of turn.
4c - move both engines back to s1 to refill
5f - intensify; s5 burnt out, move 16 fire to s3. s4 burns out at end of turn.
5c - (things are looking bad for our hero) Options; refill with 5 water each, and stay in s1, or load up with 4 each, and move to s2. Lets go with option A, as at least that lets our poor doomed firies die at home.
6f - intensify; s3 burns out. move 32 fire to s1. s2 burns out at end of turn. Fire has 10VP now, and wins. Or if the fire player is feeling sadistic, they instead make the chief take their turn, spray out 10 of the 32 fire tokens, and then toast.

Given that the fire growth is exponential, loading the engines up with 3 water each and meeting the fire on turn 4, when it's in s5 isn't going to help; if you do that, instead of hitting a f8 fire with 4w, you're hitting an f16 fire with 6w, leaving 10f behind. So turn 5f ends with 20 fire in s3.

Suggestions;
- definitely make burning out be something that happens to a square when its fire load exceeds a threshold, rather than something that happens to the end square when the total fire load gets too high.
- give the engines action points, so that an engine can e.g., load and move, move twice, move and spray, or spray twice.
- Chrome suggestion: give the chief options as to the engines; regular engine; carry 5w, mv 5-load, helicopter; carry 2w, mv 7-load, for example.

[qarl]

Made some general replies seperately, but thought I'd reply directly as well to trigger a response to you if you had email responses sent to you. Check the thread for the full response I had. Thanks for the feedback, it will be incorporated.