Crafting a Dekonstruer 2

There have been many real time strategy games that have been released such as Age of Empires, Dawn of War, and Command and Conquer. But none of these games has ever gotten to the same popularity as Starcraft II. Starcraft II had become popular for its engaging gameplay, releases of additional features and amazing storytelling. Starcraft II sold over 3 million copies, making it the fastest selling real-time strategy game of all time.

Objective:
The objective in Starcraft II is to destroy all your enemies structure and units. To do this, the player must build up a strong enough army to fight against his/her opponent. The player can harvest resources to build up an army to fight the opponent or they can choose to build another base near resources to increase the amount of resources the player gets. The player will have to advance their army to the enemies base to try and wipe them out.

Race Types and Play styles:
In Starcraft II, the player can play one of 3 races every match. These are Terran, human forces with sci-fi weaponry and structures, Protoss who are aliens who also have their own sci-fi technology and psionic powers and  the Zerg, a horrific alien race with many creatures with many fangs and claws. Although there are 3 races, each race has a certain play style that goes a long with each race.
Terran: Terran are a human race that are very adaptable. They have a special ability where their structures can "lift off" and move their structures on another part of the map. Their ability to adapt to any situation makes them the most versatile race.
Protoss: The Protoss are the only race that has the ability to warp in units and structures instantly, where the other 2 races require lengthy time to build structures and units. They are also the only race where all their units have shields along with their health. The play style for most Protoss player is to split the enemy force or slowly pick off the enemy army.
Zerg: They mass up a large army and try to overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers and force. Zergs also have a territory bonus where if they stand on "creep" (black goo that is required to build structures) all zerg units will gain movement speed.

Macro vs Micro:
In Starcraft II, there are two types of management in the game that helps the player win, they are called Macro and Micro.
Macro: Macro manages the structures and overall economy of your force. Expanding the base, building structures, increasing army/worker count all increase a player's Macro.
Micro: Micro is the management of units where the player will effectively use their army the most effective way as possible. A common example is where you have a ranged unit vs a melee unit. To maximize the ranged units damage and minimize the damage the unit takes, the player moves away from the melee unit and attacks between intervals to do damage while avoiding the enemy.

Example of Micro

Resources:
There are 2 main resources in the game, each has a different use. Minerals are the base resources and is used in almost all unit and structure development, whereas Vespen Gas is for upgrades and higher tier units. Since gas is more scarce than minerals (there are 2 places to get gas per base and about 8-10 mineral spots per base). There is also the yellow mineral which players called "high yield" because when harvested, these minerals give twice the amount of the regular minerals. The only problem is, the "high yield" minerals are usually located at a highly contested and risky area, the middle of the map. Basically the "high yield" is high risk and high reward, if someone manages to harvest these, they will gain a lot more minerals that the other player.

Units:
Units can be broken down between workers/harvestors and fighters. Works/harvestors are used to obtain minerals and Vespen Gas, where as fighters cannot obtain resources but they can fight against other units. There are 4 types of armoured units, none, light, heavy and massive, the defensive capabilities increase where none is the lowest defense and massive is the most defense. Where it is true that having units with massive defense would be ideal, it most likely will never happen due to the fact that the more heavily armoured the unit is, the more resources the player needs to invest in. Sometimes it would be better to have no defense or light armoured units because they are more cost efficient. Also there care certain units that deal bonus damage to light, heavy and massive armoured targets. Enemies also have 2 attributes, either ground units or air units. Some units can attack only air, some can attack only ground and there are some units that can attack both ground and air units.

Combat:
Early on in a match, players will have small armies where they will either use to defend their base, scout the map, or harass the enemy player by attacking their workers/harvestors. As the game slowly drags on the players army size slowly begin to increase, and small skirmishes begin to happen. These small skirmishes can help the winner of these skirmishes usually decide to attack the enemy base to try to destroy one of their structures, so the opponent must use some of their resources to rebuild, slowly hindering them more. Later into the game, when large armies begun to erupt, usually means the players are ready for a fight that can either win the game or lose the game.

Strategy:
Strategy is key to winning in Starcraft II. With a solid strategy followed up by great execution, a player can easily overcome an enemy. Strategies can be either what units the player should have in their army, or how the player plans to attack the enemy base. There are other strategies called "Cheese" where the player would use uncommon methods to throw the opponent of their game. These "cheese" strategies are effective but most people look down upon them because  the opponent expects the player to play seriously and standard.

Crafting a Dekonstruer 1

League of Legends has been growing in popularity over the years since their official release in October 27, 2009. Players really enjoy the game and the player base increases over the years. But what makes League of Legends such a popular game? How is this game different from other games of its own genre or other genres? 

A reason why I think League of Legends has been growing in popularity is that the MOBA genre (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) which is what most people categorize this game, is a relatively new genre to a lot of people. Before League of Legends the only known MOBA games where DOTA, a mod from Warcraft III, and another game Heros of Newerth. With very few popular titles for this genre, this opens up the market to a whole new game. 

Goals and Objectives:

The winning condition for each match is to destroy the enemy Nexus, the opponent's main base. To get to the enemy Nexus, there are other structures  that must be destroyed such as a set of 3 towers in each lane was well as another structure in the base called the inhibitor. Additionally there are 2 more towers defending the Nexus itself from enemy attacks.

Nexus (Green/Orange) - Main building, once destroyed that team loses. 

Inhibitor ( Light Blue/Red) - When destroyed, a more powerful wave of minions (A.I controlled monsters that fight for the team) are summoned to help fight.

Towers (Dark Blue/ Purple) - Basic structures which act as turrets to hit enemies who come near it. 

Secondary Objectives:

There are also many minor objectives that help the players win the game. These objectives either give the players additional gold to spend or special buffs for their champion. To obtain the gold or buffs for your team, the player must secure the kill on these neutral monster located around the map. These objectives really help with the flow of the game and creates interesting game play because these objectives can become a double edge sword. The reason being is that there is always a risk that the enemy will steal these objectives. The higher the reward for the objective, the more pressure the enemy team will force on you. This is where either the losing team has a chance to come back into the game to win, or the winning team to push their advantage even further.

These are some of the objectives, listen from high risk/reward to low risk/reward

Baron Nashor - A purple buff that gives everyone on your team increase physical/magical damage as well as high health and mana regeneration

Dragon - Gives a lot of gold for your whole team

Ancient Golem/Elder Lizard - A blue/red buff that is given to the one player that kills the monster.

Roles/Champions

League of Legends has over 100 champions that have different play styles but fall into a generalized categories. Some champions fit into multiple categories because they can play fulfill multiple roles. With many roles and champions, teams can find multiple team compositions.

Tanks: Champions with high defensive capabilities that try to absorb as much of the damage as possible from the enemy team.

Mages: Deal high magic damage to the enemy team

Marksmen: Ranged Champions that deal high physical damage to the enemy team

Support: Either heal or provide other support such as using a lot of crowd control abilities (stuns, slow effects, etc) to protect their Marksmen and Mages.

Bruisers: Fighters who are slightly less durable than tanks but have enough damage to fight. They are usually good duelists.

Assasins: Champions with high mobility and high damage use to instantly kill priority targets such as the enemy marksman or mage.

Gold/Money:

Gold is the number one resource in League of Legends. With gold it allows the player to further develop their character by purchasing items for them. Items give the player stats such has armour, physical damage, health, etc. But why is gold and items so important for the game? It is because if player A has an item over player B, they have additional stats which gives player A an advantage in the game. Players who obtain these advantages earlier than the their opposition will have a much easier time fighting them. 

There are many ways in League of Legends to obtain gold for you and your team. The most basic way is to kill the enemy minions that slowly come out of your enemy's base. Other methods involve killing neutral monsters such as the dragon or Baron Nashor.

Ways to obtain Gold:

Enemy Minions - These give the player the least amount of gold individually but are the most reliable source of income since there is many of them and every wave of minions spawn every 30 seconds

Enemy Players - Killing an enemy will give you gold as well. If the enemy player is on a death spree, the gold they give will be less. It can even drop lower than killing regular minions. Players on a kill spree will give out bonus gold to their killer.

Objectives - All objectives will give out gold when killed/destroyed. These all include Dragon, Baron Nasher, Towers and inhibitors.

Conflict:

Fighting is a large part of the game. The map is divided into 3 lanes and the players are also divided up so in the early game, fights are usually small skirmishes usually with 2-4 players out of the total 10 players in the game. As the game progress and players start to get more items, they begin to group up and are ready to fight. But what is the point in fighting? Taking objectives such as a tower is slow if you try your own, but with the rest of your team it much faster. But the enemy team won't just let you take it for free, they will also try to stop you with their team. Which ever team wins a fight they can secure objectives for the team. Eventually these fights will will be the determining factor whether a player wins or loses the game.