Friday, March 18, 2011

[Literature] Game Balance ch2 - Numerical Relationships

[Literature] Game Balance ch2 - Numerical Relationships:

My notes from course 2 of the Game Balance class of Summer 2010, by Ian Schreiber.

Numbers only have meaning in relation to each other. A few kinds of numerical relationships:

  • identical (1:2:3:4)
  • linear (2:4:6:8)
  • exponential (2:4:8:16)
  • triangular (1:3:6:10)

It is much easier to balance a system when you can put everything in terms of a single central resource. For example in CRPG such as Final Fantasy, everything can be put in terms of HP (gold is used to buy stuff to reduce dmg, hence increasing HP). In 2D platformers, the loss condition is lives (sometimes, it is score), and everything is tied to it.

Mario Bros system Mario Bros relationships

Various loops in CRPG

XP - encounters: more encounters gets you more XP. Your level increases, and so do your stats, which in turn lets you face more encounters. The feedback loop here is not exactly positive, because as the level increases, the number of encounters needed to level up increases (non-linearly) [...]

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