Does anyone know where I can find resources, tutorials and any other information on programming Management games (i.e. soccer, basketball etc...) because i have looked but found nothing. Thanx robert@lait-storage.co.uk

someone must know
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

pleeeeeeease

I think these are probably the simplest kind of game, since you could do them in text mode if you really wanted. What kind of things do you need to know? You could perhaps look for parallels in ''normal'' game design, and see how they are relevant. But for the actual ideas and underlying structure, that really depends on how you want to represent your squad, the fixture list, the playing of the matches themselves, and so on. Do you want a lot of stats or relatively few? I think you need to decide more what you want to put into the game, and work around that, as the problem is a little too vague for any kind of directed tutorial.

I was thinking of making a Formula 1 management game requiring few stats with a simple (top down?) race view. I just wondered if anyone knew of any sources of information of how to implement the race engine and to make the stats (and the player''s decisions) afect the outcome of the race.

Kylotan: i cant agree with u that management games are the simplest ones. I think adventure games are easisest to program... (no stats etc)
But the art (if not text-based) could be harder...

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In my opinion (the crowd goes quiet, as in sleep), a game that uses stats to affect the outcome is really just assigning weights to a random number. What I mean is that a player with strength 500 against another with strength 1 would have an advantage 500 to 1.
You''re making a race game. Your stats could be labeled steering, acceleration, and reflexes. This would imply that the individual driver''s steering would keep him within a range of the optimum path. The reflexes would say how quickly the driver would react to an adverse situation (crash in front, must avoid). Again, the stats would force random numbers to fall within a range. The random numbers actually cause the computer player to perform an action, or set the amount of time an action will take.

Making friends one burger at a time.

It depends on how much detail your willing to go into. You could have hiring/firing staff, purchacing new parts for the car(s), prize money for winning races, etc.

I suggest you try and find out everything about f1 racing, and then take out the bits you dont need. then you''ll have some idea of what you need to include, and the scale of the game itself.

MENTAL

PS: another good thing to include is research labs to try and fund new body designs to make the car go faster. you could have sliders (like the scroll ones) that modify different parts of the car, and then all of the stats would be updated. you would need a good knowledge of physic for this though.

quote: Original post by JonatanHedborg

Kylotan: i cant agree with u that management games are the simplest ones. I think adventure games are easisest to program... (no stats etc)
But the art (if not text-based) could be harder...

When you say adventures, do you mean things like the old text adventures? If so, I guess they could be easier, although some do have stats, and you have to find ways of storing game states and querying them, some way of making useful NPCs, etc etc. Not to mention the text parsing element (see thread on AI board ). Whereas management games are really all about making up an equation for your ''game'' aspects and letting the players manipulate this equation without really seeing it. When it comes down to it, a soccer (or any other team-on-team) management game could represent the game like this:

for each minute of gameplay
{
team1''s chance of scoring = (team1''s total skill / total skill of both teams) / SOME_ARBITRARY_CONSTANT
team2''s chance of scoring = (team2''s total skill / total skill of both teams) / SOME_ARBITRARY_CONSTANT
}
At the end of the game, you have a score for both teams. If they are scoring too often, increase your constant until it looks ''reasonable''.

Adding more complexity is simple - you might split the equations up so that one team''s attack skill is measured against the other team''s defence skill. Or have each player''s stamina% decrease each minute, and use that as a factor in calculating ''skill''. But overall, it''s just a very trivial exercise in probabilities. You decide what stats you want, and figure out how they fit into your equations, and tweak the equations until they seem realistic.

As for the original poster''s reference to Formula1... well I wrote a simple management game called RoboRacers back on my 8-bit machine (Amstrad CPC, trivia fans). To start off with, you had a very basic Robot car, and with your race winnings, you could upgrade steering (less chance of crashes), top speed (would move quicker on the straights) and acceleration (would move quicker immediately following a corner). Also there was damage that you accumulated during the race, you could stop to fix it, improving all-round performance, but you''d lose time and/or position. This would be too simplistic by today''s standards, I know, but it made for good fun as you had to choose your upgrades based on the forthcoming races (twisty track with few straights? upgrade acceleration) and choose between repairing the vehicle when you were just in front to prevent exploding entirely, or trying to hang on to the end... (Hmm, maybe I should do a 21st century upgrade of that game )

Just think about what stats you want, how they might apply to the context and other AI/human players, work out a formula, and tweak it.

Thanks for the insight Kylotan but in your game, was it visually represented? If so then how did you get the cars o react to the stats working behind the scenes? Also, what language would be easiest to work with when making a management game (if you know)?

If anyone knows of any websites with any information at all on management games (especially driving games) then can they please post the addresses here as it would be a huuge help!

Thanks

quote: Original post by Rob83

Thanks for the insight Kylotan but in your game, was it visually represented? If so then how did you get the cars o react to the stats working behind the scenes? Also, what language would be easiest to work with when making a management game (if you know)?

No, it was text-based, but if you are going significantly graphical then you are getting slightly beyond pure management and into the realms of other games. You''d effectively end up programming a basic AI routine with the stats as the inputs. And then the correlation between input and graphics would be the same as for any action game.

As for languages, well I''d recommend C++ for everything, and no doubt the next guy will recommend something different again. Go with what you know, and if you don''t know anything, again I''d recommend C++ for versatility if no other reason.