Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Games

'The Door Problem' of Game Design 305

An anonymous reader writes "Game design is one of those jobs everybody thinks they can do. After all, they've played a few games, and they know what they liked and disliked, right? How hard could it be? Well, professional game designer Liz England has summed up the difficulty of the job and the breadth of knowledge needed to do it in what she calls 'the door problem.' Quoting: 'Premise: You are making a game. Are there doors in your game? Can the player open them? Can the player open every door in the game? What tells a player a door is locked and will open, as opposed to a door that they will never open? What happens if there are two players? Does it only lock after both players pass through the door? What if the level is REALLY BIG and can't all exist at the same time?' This is just a few of the questions that need answering. She then goes through how other employees in the company respond to the issue, often complicating it. 'Network Programmer: "Do all the players need to see the door open at the same time?" Release Engineer: "You need to get your doors in by 3pm if you want them on the disk." Producer: "Do we need to give everyone those doors or can we save them for a pre-order bonus?"'"

Comment Re:Without reading TFA, but living in the area... (Score 1) 359

False. "supply and demand" only works in economic theory. In our harsh reality you have monopolies, combination of prices between vendors, even plain extortion. The average buyer becomes obligated to purchase for $10000 regardless of whether he can spend this or not, even though the market has only one buyer in a thousand able to pay $10000.

One example? On my country (Brazil), You can get government-subsidized loans with the bank to afford homes costing up to, say, $30000. Most homes here do not cost all that to be built, the majority could be sold at a good profit for let's say $10000. But what happens? Because people can apply for loans of up to 30000, then out of nowhere all the houses now cost at least that (but they actually cost much less than that). The result is that most homes are unoccupied, for those who can not afford them or who do not accept pay them.

(And do not take this as a personal offense... But for me the north-american mentality of "maximum profit at any cost" is a cancer that will wipe out humanity soon or later.)

Comment Re:Without reading TFA, but living in the area... (Score 1) 359

You humans do have serious problems with extremes. The point is: I are the builder. I spent $1000 to make the house. If I sold for $2000, I will have a generous 100% profit. But, why I need to sell for $10000 just because someone can afford this? And worst of all my friend, maybe the buyer can pay $10000, but why he would do that when he knows that my house would cost at most $2000? Or I as builder end up getting nothing at all, or I end up starting another housing bubble, and you already know what happens when it bursts.

In summary: Having some profit is acceptable. Horever, to want 900% profit as in the example is simply stupid, blind greed.

Comment Re:WTF?? (Score 2) 798

15-year olds sociopaths. Bullies needs do be jailed for life, because they are simply unable to live in society. and if that is not enough, then they should be killed. And if that does not happen now, it will happen sooner or later when they become adults. Therefore it is better to kill then before they cause innocent victims.

Slashdot Top Deals

Work is the crab grass in the lawn of life. -- Schulz

Working...