Real time based games

If the gamer either attacks or defends, the exact moment the attack or defend happens will automatically be recorded, without any delay.

To date, there are several strategy games that have become real time. Most of these real time strategy games are being played left and right via the internet and the World Wide Web. Common examples of these games include tower defenses, hero defenses and the like. In a tower defense game, the player has the option of creating and thereafter personalizing a tower that can shoot and kill of waves of enemies.

This type of strategy online game requires a lot of patience, since you need to find out the right mixture of towers in order to form the right strategy in defending your base. You clear out wave after wave of enemy units, allowing you to gain resources and upgrade your towers in the process. Hero defense is another good example of these real time strategy games. It allows players to submit moves and play matches over any span of time minutes to days.

Matches are as fast as the players want them to be. The key to it's gameplay and mechanics though has to do with managing the state of your units in response to how you predict your opponent will play. The victorious unit in an engagement is chosen based on upon who was in a better state. For example, if a unit is stationary watching a hallway and another unit is in the middle of walking, then the stationary unit will win due to being more prepared to fire.

Martin Sojka Martin Sojka 5, 27 27 silver badges 30 30 bronze badges. Jaecen Jaecen 3 3 bronze badges. I think it really depends on the scale of combat in the game. If you have only a handful of units, then one might prefer to see an immediate result. But for large-scale battles e.

The delay seems like a fair trade-off when you get to witness the resulting fleet actions carried out in an epic battle, even if the battle is broken up into turns.

Why aren't there more? Who says there aren't? What would be necessary to make this work? What potential issues could you foresee? Ian Schreiber Ian Schreiber 4, 15 15 silver badges 19 19 bronze badges. Yes, I meant the first kind where the resolution is in real time but depends entirely on the order given before; no twitchy input required. While you say "plenty", it seems like they're all board or card games, and few even in that space. Why doesn't that version of chess exist? Why not digital games?

Seems perfect for multiplayer turn-based strategy which can get boring waiting for the other player to finish their turn; see Advance Wars. Sanctum which I mentioned also worked this way. I remember playing a console tactical-RPG a long time ago that worked this way, where you'd enter your squad's orders and then they and the enemies would move simultaneously I forget the name, unfortunately.

You see this as a solution to the problem in multiplayer games of having to wait for your opponents to move, but that's not really a full solution; one player can still finish early and have to wait for the others. Not all strategy players enjoy this kind of play, where they out-strategize the opponent only to be out-guessed and lose randomly at least, that can be the perception , which I think is why it's not as common as "pure" real-time or turn-based.

Basically all actions have the equivalent of an initiative value. That value determines who goes first even within the real-time segment. So you still are really doing sequential resolution of actions, but neither player knows who's move will go first during their strategy phase.

Dave Cahill Dave Cahill 61 1 1 bronze badge. This would reduce, if not eliminate, the issue. That is specifically cited as an inspiration for Spacecrack. Anthony Anthony 4 4 silver badges 13 13 bronze badges. FFs only have action going on at once, so it's basically just turn-based but actions can be entered in real-time.

I haven't played NWN, but I thought it was you can pause the game to issue real-time orders? Good thought, but wouldn't work multiplayer. But even without the pausing effect of NWN, it's still turn-based and realtime. The turns are time-based, while the action is still realtime.

Here's a breakdown of how it worked: The game itself uses simultaneous turn-based mechanics: all players issue orders at the same time and then signal their readiness to end the turn.

As part of the turn processing, combat might occur. Note that these "turns" are different from game turns; entire combat sessions i. During each combat turn, players issue orders to their fleets. These orders generally consist of a maneuver e.

The only exceptions I can think of are 'retreat' or 'avoid', which do not have a target associated with them. Once all players have issued their orders, the results of that turn play out in real time. This process repeats probably times on average until a victor emerges, both sides retreat, or both sides open hailing frequencies in lieu of engaging in combat. I also tend to think it works better than completely real-time combat systems like the one in MoO3 because: It maintains the simultaneous turn-based mechanics of the game.

By restricting the player to simple orders consisting of a maneuver and a target, combat time can be kept reasonably short remember, other players are waiting on you! Because players issue simple maneuvers instead of setting a course themselves, it's easier to take advantage of combat in all three dimensions if you're building a space-based strategy game. Instead of needing a clumsy 2D interface to plot an "attack from above" in 3D space, the player simply has to click "attack from above" and be done with it.

It's a hell of a lot easier to develop ;. Mike Strobel Mike Strobel 1, 12 12 silver badges 11 11 bronze badges. Kylotan Kylotan 24k 2 2 gold badges 49 49 silver badges 94 94 bronze badges.

If it's complicated for the user, I can see the argument; if it's complicated for the game designer, well Complications mean extra development time and cost, and possibly the increased chance of bugs, and maybe difficulty testing and balancing gameplay. A decision has to be made, and often it's worth dropping some of the requirements so that you can do a better job on the other ones.

Jason Pineo Jason Pineo 6 6 silver badges 7 7 bronze badges. Jonathan Jonathan 1 1 silver badge 5 5 bronze badges. Andrew Burgess Andrew Burgess 1 1 gold badge 1 1 silver badge 6 6 bronze badges. Also in an even looser sense, Grandia RPG.

Lunin Lunin 1, 6 6 silver badges 8 8 bronze badges. Mike Strobel: "By restricting the player to simple orders consisting of a maneuver and a target, combat time can be kept reasonably short remember, other players are waiting on you! All of these can be done with little or no bugs, but without a multiplayer option. Torlek Torlek 1. MK78 MK78 1 1 1 bronze badge.

We are now considering not releasing the full 6 commanders at the start of the game and instead force the player to unlock them. As well as easing the learning curve however, it provides players a sense of constant progression. Personally i'm not a fan of such a structure, i prefer to play competitive games with all the components available, so i concentrate on whoopin' my opponents butt.

But unfortunately the current state of gaming demands this kind of structure in order to keep players engaged. The Overflow Blog. Stack Gives Back Safety in numbers: crowdsourcing data on nefarious IP addresses. Featured on Meta.

Your misstep or bad luck is compounded by the passage of even MORE time and things you might not be able to control or understand yet. Another unexpected ding on real-time is…language. Often critical information particularly in tutorials!

Thank goodness blog posts are turn-based, I had time to look that up! Also, there are of course deeply competitive turn-based games. At any rate, real-time games naturally accentuate and complement competitive models, since players can bring skills like dexterity and prioritization to bear, which are natural fits in sports-like, war-like, or otherwise competitive games.

And turn-based games are designed to have purposeful moments of reflection, which are also great times for discussion. If your learning game is about a practice or procedure, the turn-based structure can be seen as modeling the template of the practice itself.

Want to make a game about evidence based argumentation? Have players do it by first examining evidence and evaluate which arguments they might impact…in turns. Want to make a game where players learn nothing about argumentation? Turn that into real-time, where the quantity of arguments applied would outweigh the quality. Turn-based components can be considered and applied where appropriate, but careful consideration should be made about accessibility, usability, and keeping the door of play open for as many players as possible.