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Game Builder Garage (2021)

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Duration: 5:30

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Lesson 1: Tag Showdown
Step 6 - Automatic Retry

Given the relative simplicity of each step thus far, it might seem a little silly to have a forced refresher... but we've actually accomplished a lot. Even if we're "just" following directions and it's "only" stuff that takes five to ten minutes (that's including the explanation and testing phases!), it all adds up and it's an ever-growing collection of interconnected parts making up a decidedly far from simple whole.

For the record, it takes a LOT of descriptive language and detail-oriented elaboration on all the possible interactions and what-ifs before you can explain what only takes a few words in human speech to a machine that needs to have it spelled out. And then those spellings must be spelled out. And so on and so forth.

"It's tag." "In an enclosed space." "With platforms here, here, here, here, and here." "Make the one guy explode when he loses." "He loses by being touched." "Also there's balls here and here." "The balls make both guys explode." "This is how they should move." "And this is how they should appear."

The equivalent of this took over half an hour to describe in the detail a machine requires. And it didn't even involve rote instructions or anything even remotely close to what the computer ACTUALLY understands. That's why game design is generally much higher level than coding--what the common parlance would call "programming," but I'd like to point out that moving Nodons around and explaining their connections IS actually programming. A very limited and rudimentary version of it, mind you, but the ability to describe Objects and their relationships and behaviors IS the key skill here, not whether or not you can plug in a bunch of gibberish code phrases and avoid a syntax error.

Sorry, I've done it again... but... um... it IS my actual training and area of expertise. If we're going to call it that.

(It's what makes it not technically incorrect if I choose to call myself a "SCIENTIST"! ... ... ...just let me have this one thing! Please.)

Anyway, we've broken a bunch of stuff... might as well add a little heartbreak to the list, right? There's indeed a designated Nodon for noticing that stuff broke. The applications for this are actually far more meaningful than you might think... and its properties screen might suggest. That should tell you something given the fact that there's a HUGE (and yet enumerated, therefore inherently limited... BUT STILL HUGE) list of objects it can track... and the properties screen has a hint that gives you some extra ideas of what that might be... but it's well beyond the scope of this lesson, I'm just getting in the way of it by geeking out over the purely hypothetical implications.

There's also a very dedicated Retry Game Nodon... although I'd like to point out that it has cousins for ending the game... and SWAPPING the game! I think the implications to THAT one should get even a casual observer's gears turning. (Though you have to be familiar with the concept of mutual recursion to catch some of the most alarming possibilities this implies.)

(SORRY AGAIN! I'm just excitable is all!)

We also have the ability to set timers. This might not seem super exciting in and of itself... and the most uninitiated might be somewhat galled at the prospect of HAVING to have a go-between to introduce a delay, whereas the Launch-Object could have delays and intervals specified within itself. However, the granular nature of Timers for the sake of just being their own thing as a building block to naturally be incorporated in combination with other pieces... that's pretty significant unto itself!

(The fact that similar things can be accomplished as a property of another specific Object is really just a convenient shortcut, rather than making you program out the specifics yourself... a wise concession indeed, given that most users probably won't see the potential in making things the long way around and thus merely be disappointed in the fact that the repetitive task of doing so isn't automated for them.)

(Okay, I guess I'm not REALLY sorry for that one.)

Whew... that's a lot of stuff to unpack compared to "if stuff blows up... wait a second... then start over"... ... ... but it's IMPORTANT!

I only hope that the game tutorial is more palatable than the thought processes that had to go into making them work the way they do... because the real shame would be if people were repelled rather than intrigued and didn't want to continue!

... ... ...kinda like reading descriptions. Oops!

...please continue...?

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