Incidentally, I wrote an article for Game Programming Gems 8 entitled Embracing Chaos Theory: Simulating Randomness in a Deterministic Environment . Just thought it might be relevant for some of you.
In a general sense, it doesn't matter how it looks if it doesn't work. On the other hand, if the design mechanic and technology works, then you can get away with sub-standard visuals.
Not weighing it either way, but AutoCAD is a tool that is meant for continual use. It has inherent reusability much like you never get tired of a hammer... you only need it again. A game, especially one that is story-driven, is NOT necessarily meant or built for reusability. Once ...
I wrote an article in Game Programming Gems 8 entitled: Leveraging Chaos Theory: Generating Apparent Randomness in a Deterministic Environment . You can see where that is going just from the title.
@Adam and others The beat up car that constantly needs repairs falls down pretty quickly when you consider buying gas, oil, wiper fluid. More to the point of the topic, however, are after-market customizations such as: leather seats fancy rims kickin' speakers satellite radio turbo chargers gas mileage packages rear ...
To claim that the gameplay of something like Starcraft II has no depth would be kinda silly... but it is to cite my own lecture title rock-paper-scissors on steroids. Every single interaction between any two types of units can be detailed with weighted graph theory just the way r-p-s can. ...
While I am a big believer in your premise, one of the problems that we would find with that approach is people would view it as broken. What you are looking at is a variant on Prisoner's Dilemma in game theory which I'm speaking about in Austin this fall, btw ...
@Andre, Interesting that you should say that. Most games that teach players to do better involve rubber-banding otherwise known as adaptive difficulty as a required component. Perhaps you had something specific in mind as a counter-example
