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]

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.