Hello!

I'm day-dreaming about making a little game, more as a hobby than anything serious. I'd like to make a multi-player, turn based 2d game. I could use some ideas on how to implement the multiplayer mechanics. Let's start with a really simplistic example:

Here we have two players, a castle, and a rat. When the rat is killed, it drops "food" as loot. Let's assume that the players can move up to 5 squares a day and "fight" once per day. Besides that the game might be incredibly slow to play (and that's OK!), I know that there's all sorts of problems with this system.

For example, let's assume that both players want to attack the rat:

1. If player's movement and "fighting" happen immediately, then whomever moves first that day will kill the rat.

2. If all players' movement are resolved once per day, then only one player will kill the rat, and the other player would have wasted their move on a frivolous action. However, I suppose I could say that both players attacked the rat, and each player spits and loot or experience.

3. If all players' movements are resolved once per day, two or more players might try to move into the same square.

I guess that option #1 is my only choice?

Cheers,

Bret

PS: I'm currently unavailable for senior art director positions.

Game design is all about choices. You pointed out three different options. #1 isn't the only "choice", because you can choose which works best for your game.

For example, #3 - what's wrong with more than one player being on the same square?
Or #2 - what's wrong with them splitting the loot and experience?

Or #4 - what's wrong with the game detecting that two players are heading at the same animal, and the game splitting the rat into two rats and making each rat take a step toward each player, so they each fight and kill their own rat?

Or #5 - what's wrong with making the game flip a coin for who killed the rat.
Or #6, or #7...

Note: There are things "wrong" about all of these options (including #1). The question is whether those "wrongs" are acceptable within the context of your game.

Just what is it that you want the players to experience when they play your game? In other words, in your mind, what is it that you want to possibly happen when two players encounter one enemy?

Good feedback Servant, and interesting question Kseh. I have to think about it. When two players encounter one enemy, I suppose that they should both be able to fight it. In terms of a rat, probably one fight will kill it. But for larger monsters, it might be handy if both players can contribute to the cause. I'm leaning toward my solution #1 above. I'm probably going to prototype it really quickly, then see how it plays.

If players have some attributes, like in RPG game, you can add an attribute like "initiative". In case of conflicting actions (like entering the same square or attacking the same enemy), the player with higher initiative would perform the action. Initiative could be dependent on player level, some skill or dexterity/speed attribute, movement so far in that turn, etc. A variation on this would be checking the distance - whoever is closer to the rat attacks it first. Of course there still would be a problem if two players have the same initiative value - in that case a coin flip would be an acceptable solution.

Since you're referring to things happening throughout the day, I thought you were going to suggest that the character whose 3 spaces away from the rat would get there first. If part of your game design is to have all orders executed at the same time, their movement could be spread out over the day, making the closer character get to the rat first. If the rat is an easy low level enemy, that character might kill the rat before the other character can even get there. However, if it was an ogre, maybe the fight would still be going on when the second character gets there, so they could fight the enemy together. But maybe if it's a dragon, the first character would get killed before the second even arrives. This could be an opening for different strategies as you try to make sure your characters get to a tough enemy at the same time, so they can work together against it.