Possible Game Enhancements

You have seen the inner workings of this simple yet addictive game. At one point I had this game on my site, and thousands of people played it. They kept coming back to play (which is always a good thing), but many requested more interesting additions. We at Electrotank are working on some new additions to this game to make it more interesting. Check out GameBook.net (www.gamebook.net) periodically if you are curious to see what we come up with! Here are a few simple suggestions for what you can do to make game play more engaging:

• Allow more than two players to play simultaneously. This is a topic that I did not have time to cover for this book. Introducing more than two players into a game adds a new level of complexity to game design, but if you can accomplish it, it's also sure make this game more interesting. Check out www.gamebook.net, the Web site for this book, from time to time. I may get around to providing a source file for a game that can support more than two players simultaneously.

• Add more creative tiles. Make it so that some tiles can be stepped on two times, or three times. Maybe some tiles do something interesting and unexpected, like warp you to another tile of the same type.

• Add collectible and destructive items. Perhaps you can pick up a land mine. Then when you land on a certain tile one on which you can step multiple times you can place the land mine there. This land mine can be invisible to other players and will explode (taking a few tiles with it) if an opponent comes within a certain distance. But watch out your opponent may have placed one, too!

• Use multiple vertical levels. You can have more than one floor in this game. Using steps or elevators or warps, you can allow players to move from one level to another.

These are just a few of the many possible alterations to this game that can make it much more interesting. With each added feature, though, comes added complexity and greater chances of introducing bugs. So be prepared to do some multiplayer debugging!