Designing Games with Xconq
The Penultimate Strategy Game
Version 7.2
April 1998
Stanley T. Shebs Copyright (C) 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 Stanley T. Shebs
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In this manual, you'll learn how to design new kinds of games with Xconq. Xconq has been designed to support the use of a variety of techniques to design, construct, and test your game idea. These techniques range from text file editing to online painting; in most cases, you will use a combination of techniques to build a complete game.
As the person customizing Xconq, you will be called the designer. This term also indicates the primary activity, which will be to Design The Game. The capabilities described in this manual are merely tools; it is up to you the designer to exercise discretion and judgement in using them.
You design games using Xconq's Game Design Language (GDL). GDL is Xconq's common language for defining all parts of a game, from the entry in the menu that players select games from, down to the last tiny detail of a saved game. GDL resembles Lisp, although (at the present time) it is not a procedural language; there are no functions and very few control constructs. Instead, the contents of a file guide the creation or modification of Xconq objects representing types, tables, units, and so forth. While a game is being played, Xconq uses this data to decide what to do and what to allow players to do. Players never actually see GDL directly.
In this manual, "you" always means you the designer, and players will be referred to as "players" or "users". The distinction is important; as the game designer, you will encounter and deal with many technical issues relating to the inner workings of Xconq, but if you master those issues, your players will see only a fun game to play.
A final caveat before plunging in: Xconq is an experiment in the design and construction of configurable games. This means I have had limited prior art on which to build, and there are lots of odd corners that have never been tested or even thought about. In this spirit, I would like to hear about weird cases, and ideas for how to handle them.
Chapter 1, "Designing Games with Xconq" is an explanatory guide for building and modifying Xconq game designs, using both Game Design Language (GDL) and online editing tools.
Chapter 2, "Reference Manual" is the complete definition of GDL. It includes the syntax and semantics of all parts of the language.
Since Xconq is still evolving, it may be necessary to extend it in order to accomplish a desired game design. Chapter 3, "Hacking Xconq" describes the general architecture of Xconq, and how to extend the basic program. This chapter also includes a rationale for the major design decisions, and some ideas for future development.