Creating a game on R…

I had an idea: ‘Battle Monster’, a duel where the players reveal the actions of their monsters at the same time. A middle point between ‘turn-based’ and ‘simultaneous action’. I like it.  I needed to make it a reality. And at the time, I started like a pro. I put everything down on paper. I made design documents. I drew cards. I even tested it on a whiteboard! These are very good reflexes. It’s a shame I forgot to do it afterwards… we all make mistakes…

It’s ok to scribble moving shapes on my blackboard, but it lacks punch, visuals and sound. And I was sick of calculating everything in my head. Next step: programming the game. The serious stuff starts now. But at this stage, the only programming software I knew was R. Perfect for doing all the statistical analysis for my thesis, but that’s it. So I should have opened Youtube and watched a tutorial to learn Unity, Godot or whatever.

But no! Here’s my prototype on R. It’s moving. Everything calculates itself. I’ve even added life bars and everything else. This is my first game! Can we say champagne?

And even though I’ve added a few rules, such as several combat distances, the possibility of dodging attacks, etc., well planned and accompanied by a diagram, there’s nothing insurmountable about it.

Lucky me. Thanks to my idea of coding my game on analysis software, I can carry out analyses. Thanks Captain Obvious. I’ve got a bunch of graphs generated from thousands of matches. It’s colorful. It’s beautiful. And now I am balancing the level of my monsters and the strength of their actions. I love it!

I admit that development may seem easy. But I lied a bit… First of all, the game doesn’t quite look like the animation above. Here, I’ve compiled the images that my code generates. Action by action. Secondly, the game interface is the same as my programm software… not very intuitive… not very appealing… Finally, entering the action of each monster in a line of code, turn by turn, is much less fluid than clicking on a few buttons…

At this stage, I’ve already spent 90 hours on the project, or about 15 days’ work. Of course, there’s the time spent designing the game at the beginning. But let’s face it, prototyping a game on R takes a lot of time, it’s boring, it’s full of bug. Don’t do it.

But it is still a prototype and I’ve validated my concepts with it. I like the middle ground between “turn-based” and “simultaneous action”. Same with the fact that the monsters are either close together or far apart, and their attack and defense values vary accordingly. It’s up to the player to anticipate their opponent’s position and act accordingly, taking into account their own speed or the slowing down of the monsters.

What’s more, coding the game mechanics in this program can quickly generate a large amount of data, when finished. Now you have to ask yourself whether the time invested in it is worth it. It all depends on the project, especially as not all gameplay could be programmed like that.

What reassures me is that I’m not the only one to have tried this mess. Others have also had time to waste with R (R Console Gaming and Fun and Games in R: Fun with Statistical Computing). If you’re curious, there should be resources available to modify at least the interface and progress further.

You can guess what happened next. I finally did my research, followed some YouTube tutorials and downloaded Unity. My game was about to take on a new form. It was the start of a long learning journey… But I’ll save that part of the story for another time.

What’s to be learned?

Start with design docs and make a simple prototype in the form that suits you best.