Sophie: xconq-7.5.0-1.20050612.5mdv2009.1 i586

xconq-7.5.0-1.20050612.5mdv2009.1.i586.rpm

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<TITLE>Designing Games with Xconq - Debugging Designs</TITLE>
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<H2><A NAME="SEC101" HREF="xcdesign_toc.html#SEC101">Debugging Designs</A></H2>

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Completely new game designs usually have a number of bugs.  There are
several stages of trouble that you may encounter.  First, the <I>Xconq</I>
may fail to read a game module completely.  It will try to report what
happened, but if for instance you left out a closing parenthesis, you
may get some strange error messages.  This is just plain old syntax
error trouble.

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Once you've successfuly read in your new game, bring up the online help
and scan through to see if the values present are what you thought.
Sometimes the reader does not interpret a module in the way you thought
it would.  The <CODE>print</CODE> form is useful for debugging at this point;
it can show you whether a defined symbol has the value you thought it
did.

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<P>
However, the most serious problems with games are play balance issues.
Some can be found out by watching a machine player attached to a
display, since its decisions are based on perceived values of the units.
The most subtle bugs can only be uncovered by extensive play
interspersed with judicious alteration of parameters.  I find it useful
to play for a while, then review and adjust the game parameters all at
once, thus avoiding tweaking one parameter only to find that it results
in another being inconsistent.  Parameters interact in many ways - you
should keep this in mind when experimenting.

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Something else to keep in mind at this point is that playability should
outweigh realism.  For example, real-life airplanes can travel 1,000
times faster than a person walking on the ground, but airplanes that
could move 1,000 cells in a turn would be ridiculous (try it out,
<I>Xconq</I> will let you do this!).

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