Indicator

After reading this page

• You've learned what indicators are
• You've learned what indicators exist in the Tygron Engine
• You've learned what other parts of a game can influence indicators
• You've learned how to alter existing indicators in your game
• You've learned how to add and remove indicators

Indicators

Indicators are the themes for which targets exist in a 3D World. They are named after Key Performance Indicators, by which organizations evaluate their success. Key Performance Indicators serve as a means for identifying potential improvements, and as a metric for the degree to which those improvements have been successful.

How indicators relate to the Tygron Engine

Indicators are a primary part of your game, and serve as the guiding element by which players can determine whether they are making progress. Just like Key Performance Indicators, indicators in the Tygron Engine serve as a means to identify how to improve the situation for your stakeholder, and to what degree those improvements are effected by specific actions. By having the right indicators in a game, players are encouraged to take actions which would match the actions of the stakeholder in real life, and to quickly recognize the effects actions have on their own goals and the goals of other players.

Indicators in the Tygron Engine

File:Ui - topbar.jpg

The top bar of the interface. The indicators are Budget, Building and Progress.

Indicators are visible in-game at the top of the interface. Each indicator is represented by a short name, and (with exception of the budget) is accompanied by a small progress bar to indicate how well you are performing on that indicator.

Each indicator has a name, a description, a color and a target. The target is the most important part of the indicator, because that is what drives a stakeholder to perform (or abstain from) an action. Each action a stakeholder takes is meant to advance their indicators.

It is not necessarily so that each player can see each indicator. Indicators which are not relevant to a player are not displayed. For example, a project developer has very specific business driven goals, which differ from (or even conflict with) the goals of a municipality.

Indicator types

A number of indicator types already exist in the Tygron Engine. The available indicator types are dividable into 2 groups, namely indicators that are stakeholder-specific, and indicators that apply globally.

Budget

The amount of money available to a stakeholder. Most actions in the Tygron Engine require money by default. Actions which require spending more money than the stakeholder has available is not allowed. Should the stakeholder end up with a negative budget, their final score will be 0 until their budget has restored.

Building

The amount of constructions that a stakeholder must reach. The targets for this indicator are subdivided into different types of constructions, such as luxury housing, offices, green and leisure. This indicator is unique in that a player will be penalized for exceeding their goal.

Green

Green is the amount of green in an area. More trees and open (grassland) areas increase the score for green. Buildings and concrete decrease the score for green.

Parking

Parking is the amount of parking spaces in an area. Many buildings have an associated need for parking spaces in the area. By building parking facilities, the score on the parking indicator can be increased.

Livability

Livability is the extent to which an area is pleasant to live in. More open spaces, luxury buildings and green increase livability. Densification, poor quality buildings and lack of nature decrease livability.

Water Storage

The amount of water storage capacity in an area. A greater capacity for storing water means an area becomes more resilient when faced with rain. Areas of open water, water-permeable surfaces and other means of storage increase the score for water storage.

Qualitative indicator

The qualitative indicator is a unique indicator, in that it is the only indicator which does not have a special function or a pre-defined calculation model behind it. Instead, the qualitative indicator functions purely as a tally to which points can be assigned. When a game uses one or more qualitative indicators, the effects that actions have on the qualitative indicators must be explicitly defined. They are also the only global indicator of which multiple can be added to a game.

Progress indicator

Lastly, each player also has a progress indicator. This indicator cannot be altered directly. It sums up the scores achieved on the other indicators, based on their importance.

Influencing indicators

During the game, players are able to influence indicators by taking actions. Almost every action has an effect on at least one indicator. It is up to the players to apply their actions appropriately to increase the score on their indicators. It is important to note that the effects of an action may extend to indicators which are not relevant to the acting player. For example, if a project developer creates a large office park where there previously was a forest, the amount of green will go down, which will negatively affect the goals of a municipality.

Indicator targets

The most important aspect of an indicator is its target. By working towards reaching the target of an indicator, a player can increase their total score. Reaching their indicator targets is the reason players take actions in the game. When a player has reached the target for a specific indicator, they no longer need to perform actions for that specific target. Most games have a balance wherein it is difficult, but not impossible, to reach the targets for all indicators. Together with the indicator's importance and a stakeholder's assignment, they form a stakeholder's objective.

Editing Indicators

In the editor, you can edit existing indicators, and you can add or remove indicators from your game as desired. To perform either task, you can open the "Indicators" panel from the "Indicators" menu in the editor.

Editor → Editor Menu bar → Indicators → Indicators

File:Editor - indicators.jpg

The indicator screen of the editor.

Changing indicators

In the indicators panel in the editor, you can select an existing indicator from the list on the left. The rest of the panel will automatically be filled with the information pertaining to that indicator. A number of properties of an indicator can be edited.

Name

The full name of indicator. This is the name that will appear as the title of the indicator in game. You can change this by altering the text in the "Name" textfield.

Short name

The short name of indicator. This will appear in areas where multiple indicators are summed up. You can change this by altering the text in the "Short name" textfield.

Color

The color of the indicator. The color will be used to display the indicator in graphs and charts. You can change this by holding down the left mouse button over the "color" square. A context menu will appear for color selection.

Description

The description of the indicator. Most indicator have a fitting default description, but by customizing this text it is possible to guide the players towards specific actions, provide hints or refer to other sources of information. You can change this by altering the text in the "Description" area.

Target

The goal to reach for this indicator. This is the most important property, because by setting the target, you are directly instructing the stakeholder what they should strive for in the game. Depending on the selected indicator type, one or more values can be entered for targets. For example: for a budget indicator, you only need to set the amount of money the stakeholder should have remaining. For the building indicator, you can enter a separate target for each type of building. You can change the targets of an indicator in the "Target for current level" table. In the "Description" column, you can see the description of which row represents which aspect of the target of an indicator. You can enter a numeric target value in the "Target" column. This value must lie within the range indicated by the "Minimum" and "Maximum" columns.

Adding/removing indicators

By right-clicking in the list of indicators on the left side of the panel, you can open a menu where you can add and remove indicators. Hover over "Add indicator" to make a second menu appear. Here you can select an indicator to add to the game. If you select "Budget" or "Building", you will also have to select a stakeholder for which to add the indicator. With the exception of the qualitative indicator, you can add one indicator of each type (the stakeholder-specific indicators, of which you can add one per stakeholder).

By right-clicking on an indicator in the list on the left side of the panel, you can also choose to delete the indicator you have clicked on. This removes the indicator from the game, so that the players will no longer need to score on it.

Changing the effect of actions on indicators

It is possible to adjust the effects actions have on indicators. For more information on this, please read about changing function values.