Re: [PBEM][CONCEPT] Dune PBEM (long)

"VTES2004" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
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> "Brandon J. Van Every" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in
message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > "VTES2004" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> >- Why didn't you implement it?
>
> I got bored of it and it became un-fun to continue working on it.

Ok, so when you design your next game, what has to change about your design
approach?  How are you going to keep from boring yourself to death the next
time?  This is a real issue... it's quite easy to bog yourself down in
pointless details and thus get deadly bored.  Also, if you are not regularly
committing your game mechanics to working code, if you can't see the results
and it's all airy fairy abstraction, it will suck your morale away.

> Partly I was unable to
> visualize any further systems (how would I create brownian pricing of
> commodities like whalefur) without creating a headache that I had no
> motivation to deal with.

Sounds like you got bogged down in micro-detail.  My Achilles Heel was
overweening planetary detail.  I kept trying to figure out ways to model
Mars at 10 km/hex scale, or 1 km/hex, or worse!  Combat systems are also an
easy way to get lost.  When you want the Truth about combat, you try to
model every bullet until it finally drives you nuts.  Then you start
settling for abstract game mechanics instead of realism.

> I wrapped up eveyrthing with "Play for 250
> turns" which never even made it into the concept document =/

How long is one of your turns supposed to be?  How much time is one game
supposed to take?

-- 
Cheers,                     www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every           Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.