Help with TAG. ( Making Who Wins RANDOM)

[JumpingLimaBean]

Can some of you guys help me come up with power ups for my game tag?

I will be creating TAG for my project and its pretty basic and usually if you are IT
first then you most likely will always win, because if you are IT and you tag the
person who is not IT you get 1 point. Then the other player becomes it.

So do you have any ideas that will help the score be more random instead of
if your IT first, you usually win. First to 10 points wins or 1 minute. ( or should i
change this to make it more random)


Like powerups i can make them pick up for extra speed or a sheild or something
just simply to make the winning more random.


Thanks

[apython1992]

By more "random", do you mean that when you tag someone, you get a random amount of points, say from 1 to 10? Because if so, then that isn't a fair game! I'm guessing that the reason you say it's so likely that the first IT player will win is that it is probably very difficult to actually tag someone (both players travel at the same uniform speed, with no environment or obstacles to add additional complexity and user decision-making). If this is the case, then I would totally suggest going for power-ups combined with a map containing obstacles, perhaps different terrain that might slow you down or speed you up, etc. This will make the game _much_ more complex than how it is now, but if you have the time and want to take on a challenge, you'd learn a lot, and you can ask for help here whenever you're stuck.

Try a range of power-ups, from speed boosts to projectiles you can launch at the other player to slow it down.

[JumpingLimaBean]

How would I make a random square go on the map using rand.int and if one of the players runs over it, then it disapears and they gain a speed bost?

[Tony]

JumpingLimaBean @ Fri Jun 17, 2011 11:29 am wrote:

How would I make a random square go on the map using rand.int and if one of the players runs over it, then it disapears and they gain a speed bost?

Break that appart into simpler steps, and figure them out one at a time:
- Drawing a square
- Picking a random location
- Collision with the player
- Increasing player's speed

[crossley7]

also, if you are looking for a scoring system, try having the scoring work based on time such as the faster you tag someone, the more points you get.

[RandomLetters]

First to 10 points wins or 1 minute.

The win condition is the problem. If you can only get points when IT, then the points will just alternate back and forth, regardless of skill. It becomes a game of hot potato instead.

One way could be to keep a second timer for each person, and see many points each person can get in 1 minute each.

[crossley7]

a possible way to have the 'win' scored is that you pick a time such as 30, 45 or 60 seconds and if the player isn't tagged by that time, they get the point. Otherwise the tagger gets the point when they tag and the timer resets. There are many ways you could score your game. Just pick one and go with it, be creative

[Ultrahex]

Of if you really want to be creative, do some research, get a bunch of people to play a bunch of games, and determine who was the best player (in your opinion) and see what attributes made them the best player and build a scoring system based on that (or maybe a multi-factor scoring system).

Of course you would want to turn off display of the score for the users playing otherwise that might affect the results.

[JumpingLimaBean]

1. I only got a few days to do this so how about a person starts as IT and tries to tag the other person. If you tag him within 5 seconds you get 3 points. If you tag him within 10 seconds 2 points. If you tag him within 15 seconds + you get 1 point.


And the timer resets each time someone gets caught.

The score will go up to 15?


2. Maybe also make it so that if the person who is IT tags the person within 15 seconds then they get 1 point.
If the person who is NOT IT gets away for more than 15 seconds then they get 2 points.



What do you think?


I need scoring system that is easy to code but effective.
Keep in mind that the playing field is a blank square about 600(x) by 400(y) and the circles are about a 15 radius. So its quite easy to tag eachother.