Anilrgowda

I have a simple 2D board game I am trying to write in C#.

I need some help with the design...all of it.

I need some good recommendations on articles that talk generally about game design. How do I take an idea and design it.

There are a lot of elements I want to pull together:

-I want to leverage OOP in my design.
-There will be a game board and game piece that you drag and drop to make game moves.
-I have the game rules written out but not sure how to design the way to enforce them.
-I want P2P internet play ability.
-I want chat ability
-I need to save the game
-I need to be able to load in saved games
-I want a level editor so I can make game boards
-Support for sound


All of these things need to be designed, but I don't know how.

------------------

Anilrgowda

Make sure you fully consider you game. Has it already been done? What new features or content does it provide to your audience ? What key factors make it fun, and need to be focused on during development. Since your talking a 2d board game I would really hunt down available frameworks and APIs, there are a lot out there for 2d.

Make sure to start simple. Like he said figure out the game mechanics how things work, and how it plays. I would almost suggest starting OO classes that handle the play logic and making a simple text-based console to allow you to easily interact with the game mechanics, leave the complexity of graphics out of the picture for the moment if you can. Focus on getting the game to play in memory off your actions through a text interface or an ultra simple interface. Game Mechanics are bound to need a lot of manipulation to get them right, and no matter what graphics you put over top the mechanics are essential. Once you are confident in your game mechanics and rule then I would start looking towards a 2d enviornment. Drawing the state of your game in memory. Next add your user interaction with the drawn state. I would get the game to the point where you can play it yourself or two people at the same keyboard and mouse before you even start working on networking and chatting. This way you don't spend a ton of time rewriting your interface because your core is in flux. In the end you want to get the most core version of your game done as soon as possible then add in the networking.

Behind the scenes you will really need to think long and hard on your object model. A good way to start is to write out in detailed text exactly how everything works and interacts then go back with a highlighter and highlight key Nouns and consider those for objects. Like you have implied -- Board, Piece(s), Player(s), Rules(s)... maybe you also have dice, card, etc.... but get a sense of the actors then determine the relationships, maybe start diagraming them in UML to help make sense of it all before you waste time on something you might rewrite down the road. When you think Object oriented think of real world concepts. For instance, a player, in a game might have a name or handle, a current score, a collection of resources or many other things.... the player object might move their piece on the game board, or draw a card, etc. if you can acturally place the data you need to track and methods to interact with in the correct objects it will make it easier when you add features like online play. A player could then be extended to a new object such as OnlinePlayer which now includes an ip address, etc. as far as the game is concerned he's still a Player and your system works for you. So define a solid Encapsulation and inheritance like this.

So basically start simple, put a lot of thought into it, study up on OO if you need to, and design the basic game first before you add a complex interface of the "gold plating" to your game. You want to get a basic game working first then trick it out.

------------------