In this video
Look over my shoulder as I craft a Geometric Progression system for YOUR game in excel. This is not a clean perfect replication, it’s a raw look at how I actually work. Then we’ll jump into Unity and actually implment our design using the Turn Based Tool Kit. An affordable plugin that let’s non-developers (aka Designers) make their own turn based hex map tactical warfare game. It’s a really great framework so check it out.
For more information about Progression systems in game design look at my previous posts –Game Design: Creating A System Formula – 101- and You are a Game Designer – So what do you do
Missing from the video:
So this video was a tutorial on HOW to do things and not necessarily a video on WHY to do things. So let’s talk about the Why for a little bit. So one thing you may notice in the video is making a Dark Knight and a whole new geometric progression system to make it better than the Knight unit we already have, is well… extraneous!? I mean we could have just plucked those numbers out of thin air and it would have done the job and been so much faster. That’s because we were only looking at 1 entry, a 50 point Dark Knight whose design goal was to be >Knight.
When we make progression systems we’re creating system guidelines. All (or a lot) of our units should be based on this system. So we should have a “Base unit system” or “knight system” or “soldiers and knights system” and simply modify the results from that list to create our unique units such as the Dark Knight.
For example we could have a “Soldier” system that gives the soldier 7.75 hit points for every 5 points in cost. He has light armor, he moves 3 spaces a turn etc. Then when we want to create a Knight we think about our design goals “Ok I want a big armored unit that moves slower but deals more damage and has more HP or Armor than a regular soldier”. So we would create a Geometric System that modifies those base stats. It would take the Soldiers stats and multiply HP by 1.25 (or some number) and the damage by 1.15. And that wasn’t made clear in the video. But I did show everyone how to make a geometric progression in excel, how to create a unit in TBTK. So general mission accomplished.
Thanks for watching, thanks for reading
Bud Leiser
Game Designer
