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I'm terrible when it comes to graphics programming but I have delusions of someday becoming competent at least with the concepts. I learned a lot from this blog post by one of the developers of Planetary Annihilation.

 

It's edifying to see that they are doing a lot of work to make their eventual product actually match the look and feel of their demo (which was created without any game tech in place, as far as I understand).

I have read many articles on the diamond-square algorithm especially, and can reliably implement it. Now I'm looking for some reading material that describe methods for counteracting the weaknesses in the DS algorithm or that describe more in-depth methods of altering it, though I'll happily read anything that gets thrown my way. A Google search no longer turns up too many quality articles that I haven't already read, so I'm hoping there is something in the GameDev gestalt memory.

What is a good, standard way for the game to respond to actions taken by the player through any particular class?

For instance, in my current project a city can create an army with a few variables set by the player. Right now I have it set up as the City class actually creates the Army object, but passes it to the Game Controller for all the other work (placing it in the army lists for instance). In order to do this I have to have an appropriate function in the Game Controller and pass it to the City object when created (coding in Python). Similarly, I would have to make and pass functions for armies attacking, for trade caravans arriving... Is this overly clunky?

I'm doing my best to enforce seperation and modularity in my code (it being a hobby/learning project, I anticipate ripping it up and rewriting often), and thus I want to keep communication between code layers and objects (game map, playing objects, game controller, etc) as standardized as possible, so I'm looking for a paradigm that can be generalized across the entire project.

I'm slowly developing a comprehensive RPG system in my head. The fighting system in said RPG is going to be fairly complicated, with multiple targetable areas, concerns of stance and facing, etc. In other words, even for a well-versed player the possibilties might be enough that they need to take a non-trivial amount of time to choose their next action.

All this complexity is great for someone like me who loves complex games, but it might seriously harsh the buzz of a person who likes more viscerality. Because of the complexity of the fight system the player might need awhile to make each decision, which has the effect of slowing down gameplay (albeit in a way that I and folks like me would still enjoy). I have a number of ideas for how to better appeal to them as well, and one of my favorites - though I'm concerned about its effectiveness - is the Fight Playback.

In every violent encounter, the game will start to record the actions of the various participants (basically saving a small section of the world for as long as the fight goes on). Then at the end the player will be able to rewatch the fight in real-time.

Obviously a lot of the potential of the idea is bound up in the execution - great animation and such - but what do all of you think of the basic premise? For those of you who enjoy quick, action-packed button-mashers, would this system help you to enjoy a much slower playing experience more?

I don't know about you guys, but I play a lot of games.

I play games over the course of weeks, months, even years. I have a Civilization 5 game that's been going for the better course of this year, and it is not the only Civ 5 savegame I'm keeping up.

It can be very hard to keep all these games straight. My plans, the state of my diplomacy, etc. Some games do a good job of tracking your history for you, and some do not. While I'd like to see more games keep track of your past actions, no game can keep track of your future actions - which is why I wish most games would just give me a little "notes" interface.

Just a normal, bare-bones, no-frills text editor so I could keep track of my plans from session to session.

I've played games that did better than that. they let me attach notes to various locations or units, and that helped me keep track of things much better. In lieu of a _real_ ingame system, though, I'd love it if a regular Notes system caught on in most games.

I'm tired of resuming a game I haven't played in a month and completely forgetting what the hell I was doing...