Converting Game Design Attributes to Numbers
- Getting a Feel for Your Attributes
- Determining the Granularity for Numbers
- The Tension Trick
- Searching for the Right Numbers
- Further Steps
So far in this book, you have created objects and their attributes. You have also created a spreadsheet to organize all your data. The next step in bringing your game ideas to life is to start putting in numbers for all of those attributes.
Getting a Feel for Your Attributes
Before trying to assign numbers to attributes, you should start by getting a feel for what you want to get from those attributes. For example, if you were making a racing game and wanted to create the speeds and acceleration attributes for three different vehicles, you could start with some descriptions of what the speed and acceleration feel should be:
Sports car: Good acceleration and good top speed
Muscle car: Fastest top speed but with less acceleration than a sports car
Motorcycle: Fastest acceleration but lowest top speed
While you have assigned no numbers to these attributes yet, you now have a guide that will help in determining what numbers fit the feel you want.