The 2008 Project Horseshoe reports are up! We wrote about how to diagram multiplayer games using skill atoms. Truly a brilliant weekend. The discussion was quite wide ranging and as a result the write up became a bit...long. However, the results should spark a few brain cells. Let me know what you think! :-)
Best wishes,
Danc.
PS: There are some great reports up this year so be sure to browse around a bit.
2 comments:
Hi Danc,
I am in the process of trying to use skill atoms to figure out a way of improving my entry for the global game jam. I'm finding that its forcing me to think in a very structured manner, rather than just tinkering with the code and adding/removing a rule in an ad-hoc manner. I'm still in the process of listing out the various skill atoms in the game, and the skill chain.
If I do end up making something that is substantially more enjoyable than what is now, I'll definitely try and to a 'before' vs 'after' writeup showing the problem areas in the skill chain and how they were rectified.
I didn't find any mention of this in the writeup, but it would seem to me that explicit skills are generally result in more pleasure than implicit skills. To take extreme cases, there isn't much pleasure to be had by simply moving around (an implicit skill) in quake 3, but the first time you figure out how to rocket jump(an explicit skill) it feels brilliant. The only apparent way to increase the pleasure associated with an implicit skill is to improve the presentation. Examples would be Mario's 'Wa-hoo' when he jumps, or the heady sense of movement you get by simply running in Mirror's edge.
Correction : After reading the project horseshoe writeup again, I got the terminology switched. What I meant that moving around in quake 3 is an 'explicit skill' and rocket jumping is an 'implicit skill'. And the only apparent way to increase the pleasure associated with an 'explicit skill' is to improve the presentation. Sorry about that
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