Calculating Scores

Much of the fun that comes from playing a game is through the different ways that a game can provide feedback to the player – positive or negative. This is a great opportunity for game designers to connect with players at an emotional level. Connecting positive events and outcomes to a player’s actions creates a feedback loop between the game and the player, and one of the oldest and truest connections in gaming is the concept of a point score that accumulates throughout gameplay.

The scoring system used in Space-Truckers bases a player’s final score around a few basic categories and concepts, details of which we’ll be covering shortly. When scoring is triggered (that is, the player reaches their cargo’s destination), the game displays a DialogBox that is initially empty, but which displays each category of scores in a line-by-line fashion before giving the final score.

Before building out the logic to capture and calculate...