As for specific responsibilities, we are talking about

• forming the basic balance of game currencies;
• balancing rewards in activities;
• creation of offers for players;
• researching the game’s KPIs;
• analysis and adjustment of deficits/surpluses of game currencies.

In a strategy like Forge of Empires, the calculation will also be based on time, but the role will be played not by character leveling, but by the development of a city or village. And in the case of Clash of Clans, a strong emphasis is placed on the time of building a structure. This does not affect the game’s economy, but it is important for monetization and the total time a person spends in this game. For example, the main building of the 20th level takes three days to build – this time is needed to emphasize that the player is really moving to a new stage, to motivate him.

In addition to the economy and time, there is also monetization. Let’s take F2P – it is the only source of income for them. Therefore, the team introduces special “crutches” to motivate players to pay a dollar or two. For example, they add a paid option to speed up the construction of a building by two hours. And many such purchases occur when a player has already started doing something but does not have time or does not want to wait longer. This is often an impulsive purchase, which, however, plays into the studio’s hands.

Both the list of tasks of a Game Economy Designer and who he or she has to communicate with most directly depend on the company and its structure. After all, somewhere an economic designer may be alone, and somewhere he/she may work in a team of similar specialists. In addition, he or she may additionally perform the functions of a game designer, data analyst, system designer, etc. The standard rule usually applies: smaller team means more responsibilities.

Most often, you have to deal with the game design department (Game Designers, Level Designers), as well as the Product Manager and the producer. The least such a specialist cooperates with marketers and developers. Communication with the latter is mainly limited to the creation of tools that will facilitate their work (for example, help them edit variables in the game build).

Typical tasks include:

• express analysis of KPIs;
• working with analyst reports;
• calculations for new functionalities and optimization of existing ones.
• meetings for the presentation of new functionality;
• analysis of revenue deviations, etc.

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Why it’s hard to create mirrors in games

The main problem with creating mirrors and any reflections in games is not the methodology. There are plenty of implementation options, but choosing the best one for the specifics of a particular project and guaranteeing the right level of optimization is the main challenge. And there is no single unified solution.

For a correct and truthful reflection, the mirror should show the character, the environment, and the objects behind. At the same time, the image should change depending on the angle at which the camera or character is located and show movements. That is, mirrors should respond to changes in space in real time.

In order to show the environment behind the character in the reflection, it needs to be rendered, the angle of entry and exit from each point within the coverage needs to be calculated, and everything needs to be reflected in the mirror. At the same time, it was necessary to take into account the intensity and direction of lighting, visual effects, and light-reflecting surfaces.

The simplest example is the first-person view. In games that use this camera option, the protagonist’s model can be adapted in some way for ease of control or certain mechanics. The player does not see this, but mirrors need to show the character correctly and without changing the proportions of the body.

On top of that, there is the need to guarantee high-quality optimization in the presence of mirrors, and this is the most difficult task. Each reflection for a fair reflection slows down the frame calculation by a fraction of a second.

In addition, scenes are usually rendered gradually, meaning that assets are loaded a moment before the player sees them. In certain situations, the presence of a mirror makes it necessary to adjust this approach and load twice as many assets. This adds complexity to the optimization. As a result, rendering programmers, who are usually responsible for creating mirrors, have to try to make everything work smoothly.

Screen Space Reflection (SSR)

Let’s start with a method that is often used to implement mirrors in modern games. Screen Space Reflection works with information already embedded in the scene. The engine takes a snapshot of the current frame and analyzes it to determine the objects to be reflected. Next, a simplified, low-resolution version of the scene is created, known as a display buffer or G-buffer. It contains only the objects and surfaces that will be shown in the reflection.

This buffer is used to calculate all the reflections for the final version of the display. Using it, the engine projects rays from the camera position in the screen space. The latter are used to process the buffer and further determine the color and intensity of the reflection.

Planar Reflections

This method involves additional rendering of the entire scene, which is applied to a separate plane. From this plane, the image is projected onto reflections. An important condition: these surfaces must be parallel to each other.

When using Planar Reflections, the reflection shows an exact copy of the environment. However, this method has several important limitations. It can perfectly reflect the scene along one axis. This is good for realizing mirrors and reflections on flat surfaces, but Planar Reflections cannot be used for other geometric shapes.

Cubemaps

Cubemaps was first introduced by NVDIA in 1999 to realize reflections in car mirrors in racing games on the PlayStation 1. That is, the technology is quite old, but it has not lost its relevance.

The name implies that the method uses a special cube around which the stage is located. 2D images of the environment are projected on its surface, and this creates a panoramic view of the environment.

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To develop games it is necessary to have knowledge and skills of programming. There are several programming languages that are widely used in gamedev:

C++

C++ programming language is one of the most popular and powerful languages for game development. It provides low-level access to hardware and has high performance, which is especially important for creating resource-demanding games.

C#

The C# programming language is one of the main languages for game development in the popular Unity game engine. It offers a simple syntax, integration with Visual Studio, and powerful tools for creating game content.

Python

Python is a a high-level programming language that is widely used in various fields, including gamemade. It has a simple and clear syntax, which makes it attractive to beginners. Python is used for game prototyping, scripting, and creating developer tools.

JavaScript

A programming language that is often used in web development and can also be used to create browser-based and mobile games. It has broad support and a rich set of libraries and frameworks for game content development.

Java

Java programming language is also used in game development, especially for creating games for Android mobile platforms. It offers a wide range of features and good performance.

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