Battle Engine design.

Game Play & Game Design
#1

So, it’s turn based. The enemy will slide to the player, attack, and he will be knocked back and health will be shaved. Problem is, I don’t know how to go about it. The engine has a stats class, a player class, and the enemy classes. Right now, they will slide to the player when it’s their turn, but I don’t know if I should make an object that collides with the player and triggers the knock back and stat editing, or what. I also considered editing his stats directly from the enemy, and turning a boolean on in the player object to knock back, but then again, that’s sketchy too.

All entities are managed by a list in another class called EntityManager.

Any advice would be fantastic.

#2

It really is your call.

The direct manipulation from the enemy would be easiest, however the object-event based method is more extensible.

I would suggest doing the easiest way first for the following reasons:

  1. To keep momentum / motivation… dont underestimate this for hobby game development
  2. This is a game, that most likely you are not collaboratively programming so you dont have to have the best / well understood solution to help others understand
  3. Normally the easiest/ simplest method is good enough

however if you start to feel restricted by the direct manipulation then you can probably reconsider at that point.

#3

For changing the stats and knockback:


--------------Enemy Class---------------------
public void attack(Player p){
p.health = p.health - damage; //damage is an Enemy class variable(integer)
knockBackPlayer(p);
}

public void knockBackPlayer(Player p){
int deltaX = x - p.x; //class variable x and player variable x
int deltaY = y - p.y; //same as above but w/y
//do stuff w/deltaX and deltaY to animate knocking back



}

If you have only one player character/sprite, then the attack and knockbackplayer methods probably don’t need a parameter.
This is just a rough template, do whatever you want with it to fit your needs.

#4

bad idea the knockback done this way. just apply a force on the body, that way you don’t break physics and different mass can respond in different way

#5

right, it’s an engine. forgot about that. thx lesto.

#6

There is no real physics, it’s really just an aesthetic. So he just slides back, since every “Living Entity” in my game has a simple directional movement base in it’s parent class. I just set the waypoint 5 units behind where he is, and he slides there with the sprite set up.

#7

Sorry to necro, but I didn’t feel it neccesary to make another post for what I’m about to ask.

I can’t for the life of me get a smooth fighting engine going, it’s just…jumpy. Can I have some design advice please? Thank you.

#8

Jumpy? Is it a lag problem or algorithm problem? For algorithm problems I would look into excessive use of the EDT thread.

#9

And also you should post some code.