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Any Tips on Strategy Games Development?

Discussion in 'Game Design' started by MBennettDev, May 23, 2015.

  1. MBennettDev

    MBennettDev

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    May 23, 2015
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    5
    Hey guys! I'm a budding game dev and I was wondering if you had any tips for creating real-time strategy games using Unity.
     
  2. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    Dec 5, 2013
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    Start easier :)

    RTS games are pretty complex. Building side scrollers, platformers and first person shooters first will help get your feet wet before jumping into an RTS.
     
  3. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

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    Well, since you've posted in the Game Design forum I assume you're really asking for tips on designing RTS games.

    The obvious place to start is by looking at prior art, and trying to analyze what made them fun — and what makes them not fun.

    Personally, I always enjoyed campaign mode, but never got into multiplayer, because for me the fun is in building up a thriving little city... and in multiplayer, I barely get started on that before the other guy swarms in with tons of primitive units and wipes me out. ;)

    So you should decide who your audience is: hard-core competitive players, or more relaxed sim players? Then see how you can optimize and make it the best game possible for that audience.

    There are some key decisions you'll have to make, like fixed maps vs. procedurally generated. The latter provide more fun to players who like to explore and discover. Fixed maps are demanded by the hard-core competitors, so they can spend hours analyzing the optimal sequence of actions to p0wn the other player.

    I hope this gets you started... as your design evolves, present it here for feedback. And if you need help with implementation, please ask in the other forums (Scripting, Graphics, etc.).
     
  4. MBennettDev

    MBennettDev

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    May 23, 2015
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    Oh this won't be my first project :) I've done a lot of tutorials and trained building prototypes for a couple of genres so I know my way around Unity and early game dev well enough (though I've by no means left the beginner stage yet). But the one genre I haven't seen much documentation for is real time strategy and that's where my interest mostly lies.
     
  5. MBennettDev

    MBennettDev

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    May 23, 2015
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    Thank you! All duly noted. Looking forward to being part of this community!
     
  6. theANMATOR2b

    theANMATOR2b

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    Jul 12, 2014
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    7,790
    Remake the original Age of Empires and make all new art and call it something else.
    HIT!
    I loved that game - in similar fashion how Joe Strout explained.

    Rise of Nations was another great RTS imo.
     
  7. SpaceMammoth

    SpaceMammoth

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    Jan 2, 2013
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    Start simple is always always good advice, but I don't think it means avoiding strategy - just keep your game scope very tight. On finding that simple design, look at others that are fun and very simple such as planetary wars https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chris.pwars&hl=en which is in my opinion a nice contained strategy game. Or Eufloria http://www.eufloria-game.com/ for another indie classic that shows how good game design rules. I loved age of empires, but its a bigger game, in my opinion.

    Things I personally like from real time strategy games - I like a well constructed single player mode that lets the player discover one aspect of the novel game at a time. I don't as much like the RTS where the only strategy is to turtle defend and grow, then swap the enemy - but that's my taste. I liked the Myth series more than I liked Warcraft, everyone's mileage will vary.

    Getting the strategy right is the interesting challenge, you actually want there to be some strategy to work with. One thing you could do is re-use successful game designs from classic non-computer games. The game mechanics behind rock paper scissors has been used in many RTS games as a key part of the game strategy (Myth, Halo wars). Just a thought - you could maybe look at find ways to bring in the simple game elements of other games - such as chess (movement restrictions), checkers (promotion), poker (bluffing), tic-tac-toe (resource arrangement) or any game you can think off as inspiration. Also pick a theme that hasn't been done, the more original the better. Best of luck.
     
    Gigiwoo, JoeStrout and theANMATOR2b like this.
  8. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    Dec 5, 2013
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    Consider some modern board games mechanics as well, like drafting, deck building, victory points ect.
     
    SpaceMammoth likes this.