Help with my stats please!

Game Development ChoiceScript Help
1

I’m making a game where the player takes part in a series of robot vs robot fights. I’ve come up with the following stats for the game (which is the robot’s loadout) Comments on their names and opinions on the stats would be appreciated.

Frame - determines your robot’s base stats
Cell - determines how long your robot can fight for
Armor - determines how much damage your robot can take
Arms - determines what modification are attached to your robot’s arms
Legs - determines what modification are attached to your robot’s legs
Impact - determines how hard your robot can strike
Accel - determines how fast your robot can move
Wave - determines how powerful their wave technique is. [Wave Technique is a move where the robot uses artififical energy to fire from their hands]

Player’s can choose from a pre-built model or make one from scratch using a selection of parts

2

What about optional weapons and upgrades?

3

You may want to also consider sensors and damage control units.

4

Those are good ideas, I’ll have to see, my knowledge of choicescript isn’t too good to make things to complicated. But I’ll definately consider them.

5

I have only worked with it a little over a month, but theres lots of help to be found on the site. :slight_smile:

6

I don’t want to sound harsh, but I really question whether choicescript is a good match for a combat game. Certainly, it can be done…but the ‘engine’ here is oriented more or less around distinct, one-time choices, not ‘repeat until dead.’ I fear that any game specifically oriented around a fight would be uninteresting and repetitive.

7

@Dominic I see it as a possible good idea, so long as two conditions are met:

  1. The fighting is ‘short’ in that the robots have a much stronger attack than defense (slug-fests between tank like bots would get real dull real fast with ChoiceScript)
  2. There is a story to tie it all together. A straight up robot battle game with ChoiceScript would be boring, but if combined with good story, it could really do well.

What I do see being a problem is saves. One problem with CS is that you can’t save. Sure, for most CS ‘games’ its not much of a deal, because their less of a game and more of a branching story. You just play through again making the same choices, and you’ll (probably) end up in the same place. However, with a combat game, a save system is a bit more wanted. On the other hand, a lack of a save feature gives a much more visceral ‘If I lose I really lose’ sort of feeling.

@Nocturnal_Stillness About the stats themselves, I’d separate ‘Arms’ and ‘Legs’ out of the pack, giving it a Core structure with add-ons. So you’d have:

–Frame - determines your robot’s base stats
I’d recommend a handful of Frames with core stats, like so much damage they can take and how fast they react.
–Power (renamed from Cell) - determines how long your robot can fight for
I’d recommend that this be determined by the Frame, or Cell be another part which determines the starting Power with the possibility of add-ons giving additional Power.
–Armor - determines how much damage your robot can take
This is relativity strait forward, but I’d recommend adding a detriment to high armor to (as mentioned above) keep fights fast.
–Impact - determines how hard your robot can strike
I’d tie this into the Frame.
–Accel - determines how fast your robot can move
I’d tie this into the Locomotion.
–Wave - determines how powerful their wave technique is. [Wave Technique is a move where the robot uses artififical energy to fire from their hands]
I’m not much of one for soft Sci-Fi, so I won’t be commenting on this, except that all weapons should probably be add-ons.
–Left/Right Arm (renamed) - determines what modification are attached to your robot’s arms.
I’d give a slot (or maybe multiple slots) for each arm. (Actually, I’d probably go with a number of ‘hard points’ based on the Frame on which to mount weapons).
–Locomotion (renamed from Legs) - determines what the bottom of the robot is.
I’m not one for humanoid robots, but if they all were to be, I’d do away with the legs option altogether (tying that into the Frame) and go with Add-ons.
–Add-ons (New) - Determines extra features of the robot.
Give each frame a limited amount of ‘slots’ for add-ons, which can be any of a number of things, from accel boosters to extra power, to special abilities.

What I see as the largest problem is the opponents. Besides their own stats, you’ll have to actually build a certain intelligence to them, making sure that they fight in a way that optimizes their abilities.

What I do have to ask is what kind of robots are we talking about? Are we talking about the real life kinds (ala the TV series Robot Wars) or the giant kind (ala Power Rangers or the game series Super Robot Wars)? That significantly impacts the expected style of the game. If you’re talking about the giant robot, I’d recommend a more fluid ‘special skills with a handful of stats’ approach like in the game Gargoyle (http://gargoyle.unimatrix42.com/mygame/) by @Simski . If, on the other hand, you’re talking about the real life kinds of robots, I’d be happy to pass along a clock I did a little work on to get you started in the right direction. It’s not much (currently it’s just a clock) but I’d be happy to try to add some turn tracking functionality (I tried once, but didn’t get it working the way I wanted to) (PM me if you’re interested).

8

Hey @Nocturnal_Stillness,

basically, there are two approaches to design stats: top-down and bottom-up. Top-down design means you envision what a robot in your game would look like and what stats that robot would have. I’m guessing that’s the approach you took here. Bottom-up design means you think about how you can make the fights fun, what stats you need for this and how they would translate to a robot.
The best approach is probably a mix of the two.
Do you have an idea about how the fights would be decided? It can be tough to write a combat system that allows the player a maximum of meaningful choices to avoid boring fights. Other things you have to consider are balancing, randomization of combat descriptions, enemy design and, like @Reaperoa already mentioned, “artificial intelligence”.
In ChoiceScript, it’s a daunting task and you’ll need to employ some advanced techniques like loops and (pseudo-)arrays, but it’s doable. Just expect to spend a lot of time on it. If you are looking for an example of how a combat system can be done, you can have a look at the beta of the combat system I wrote for a Zombie game: http://zombies.unimatrix42.com. If you need any pointers, I’d be happy to help.

Cheers,
Simon

PS: You should also think about wether ChoiceScript is the best choice for your game. It’s a great engine and certainly capable of a lot, but mainly made for story-driven multiple choice games. If the fighting is most of your game, maybe consider alternatives.

9

Thanks for all the comments I can see your points. I’m trying to work on a simple game but keep coming up with ideas that require a lot of work. I’ll shelf this idea for now. And go back to coming up with a new idea.

10

I’ve decided to keep with a sci-fi theme. But have added a twist, hearing people mention the AI I’d need to code for the other robots. It gave me an idea.

The story will no longer be about the player controlling a fighting robot. Instead the player assumes the role of an AI that is put into a humanoid cyber-frame. when your research base [your home] is attacked by someone you are forced to escape…

and thats as far as I’ve thought of so far.

To reflect this the stats will be as follows (thanks to @reaperroa for the suggestions that helped).

***
Name - what your AI is called.

Creator - who wrote your programming.

Purpose - the reason you were created (war, espionage, construction etc).

Processor - How smart you are.

Sensors - determines how aware of your surroundings you are.

Power - this is how much power that remains in your cell, choices will detract from this and if it reaches zero you shut down.

Armor - determines how much damage you can take.

Locomotion - determines how fast you can move.

Accel - determine how quickly you can react.

Lifting - determines your physical strength.

Impact - determines how hard you can hit.

Communication - how well you can talk.

Wireless - determines the range you can talk to other computers.

11

Sounds very good looking foward to it.

12

I’ll probablly add more stats as the story grows. So far I’ve written the first few scenes which covers your intial programming set up.