Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers

Chapter ThirteenTurns, Ticks, & Time

Introduction

One of the common stumbling blocks for novice video game designers is understanding how to design real-time games. This chapter aims to demystify “realtime” and show how the use of flowcharts can help a designer specify a design as a rigorous series of concrete steps.

The learning objectives for this chapter are:

1. Be able to describe how turn-based and real-time games are similar and how they differ.
2. Understand how a game’s mechanics can be structured into a main game loop.
3. Become familiar with flowcharting as a game design tool.

Turns and Real-time

Most tabletop games are structured into turns and rounds, with players’ actions unfolding one at a time. Much more unusual are tabletop ...