Now that we have created a game model, as well as some 3D assets to display, we can tie them together and have something to interact with. We will create a couple more scripts, one to serve as the view component on the board and one to serve as the game controller. By the end of this lesson, you should be able to play a sample single player experience of Tic Tac Toe.
Projects
Turn Based Multiplayer – Part 2
In this lesson we will write the code for the TicTacToe game model itself. This is just an abstract implementation that by itself isn’t playable, and doesn’t actually display anything. It simply has the idea of what the game is, what the rules are, and how to win, etc.
Turn Based Multiplayer – Part 1
In this project, we will be using Unity’s new networking libraries to make a turn-based multiplayer game. I chose a very simple game, TicTacToe, so that I woudn’t be too distracted by much beyond the architecture I would need to achieve my goal. It is my first attempt to implement networking with Unity, so I am very open to feedback. If the general response is positive, then I may take it a bit further and try to make a Hearthstone sytle card game.
Tactics RPG A.I. Part 2
In A.I. Part 1, we added autonomous agents. Our enemy units could randomly move around the board and pick and use abilities with random targets. Now it is time to make them move and aim with a purpose. We need our enemies to be smart enough to hit multiple targets, attack from the best angles, and avoid friendly fire, etc. They should always act intelligently from the options which are available.
Tactics RPG A.I. Part 1
I’ve decided to split the A.I. implementation into two parts. This first part will cover the “what” as in “what ability do I want to use?”. This is the easier of the two problems. The next portion on “how” as in “how do I know where to move and aim to best use the ability?” is rather complex. Since this bit is easier, I will also include the code that ties the A.I. into the battle states, as well as adding another user interface view which shows the name of the ability that a computer controlled unit has chosen to use.
Tactics RPG Intro To A.I.
I’m currently hard at work preparing A.I. for this project. I was hoping to have it ready to share today – it works, but I am still polishing the code and working on writing the accompanying tutorial. While you wait, I decided I could share the decision making process I followed while architecting this portion of the project to help whet your appetite.
Tactics RPG Victory Conditions
Now that we have enemies, we can also provide an actual “goal” for the battle. First we must be able to actually defeat the enemies, as well as risk defeat for our own units. There needs to be a consequence for a unit’s hit points dropping to zero, so we will add a “Knock Out” status effect which disables a unit from acting or taking additional turns. Likewise there should be an effect for defeating all enemy units, or allowing all hero units to perish. These are sample “victory conditions” which we will track, and which will allow the battle to end. Continue reading
Tactics RPG Unit Factory
It’s well past time to add some enemies to the board, but by now we’ve made all sorts of modifications to the “Hero” prefab which haven’t been propogated to the “Monster” prefab. We could spend time manually setting up each new character to have the same kind of structure, but I really don’t want to. Instead, we will use this lesson to lay the groundwork on a more flexible system. We will be making a factory to create and configure new units for us, so that introducing new and unique characters in the future will be a much simpler process.
Tactics RPG Magic
We have enough components to make several abilities, and in this lesson will make a few more. Magic based abilities are often the most powerful in an RPG, so they need a way to be regulated. If players could use them freely the game would end up both boring and monotonous. There should be a reason for players to use different abilities at different times. In order to foster this kind of strategy, this lesson covers the use of magic and magic points.
Tactics RPG Ability Effects
Over the past several lessons we have implemented tempory implementations for the effect of an ability, such as manually implementing an attack damage estimation and application of the damage itself. In this lesson we will be providing a much more complete implementation which allows for very different effects ranging from applying damage to inflicting status ailments and which supports just about anything you would want to do.