Games consist of several toys that are connected together. One of the games Quorra can show you is the treasure defense. In this, you have money to spend on some defenses and then must protect an object from waves of enemies. While the game kit that Quorra provides is fairly simple compared to the Toy Box Games you can play, this kit shows the basics and the vital connections. In addition to placing the kit in the Toy Box World, Quorra also explains several of the key toys and how they are connected to each other.
This is the treasure defense kit. All of the toys are grouped together. However, in a real game, you could move many of them out of sight, such as behind terrain or objects.
The first toy that Quorra introduces is the inventory manager. It is used in this game to limit the choices of toys that players can select in the editor. By setting the properties of this toy, you can choose exactly what toys are available. Next she discusses the storefront. This toy has two menus. One is used to organize a shop of items for sale. The other menu is for players to actually purchase those items during the game.
The inventory manager and storefront toys allow you to set up the ability for players to purchase toys during a game. You can customize when and what items are available as well as how much they will cost.
Because this game involves money, the money manager toy is a must. It lets you choose the type of currency you want to use as well as how it appears in the game, such as when you defeat enemies or break items. This money can then be spent in the storefront. The amount of money dropped by these things can be set using the loot drop manager toy. As you can see, if you want to use money and be able to buy things in the game, you need several different toys connected together.
While Quorra explains how some of the toys create an economy to introduce you to the importance of connecting toys to complete a function, where a game really starts is with the challenge maker. In order to begin a game, a player must first step on the challenge maker. For this game, the challenge maker is connected to the text displayer. This provides instructions to the player that have been written within these toys. After the text is displayed and the player presses a button to remove the instructions to start the game, the text displayer sends a signal to other toys to get the game going.
Each game needs a challenge maker that the interface players use to access and start a game. This is a feature new to the game.
For example, in this game, the text displayer gives instructions to pick items to use in the game. Then it sends a message to the storefront to open and let the players start picking. It also activates the money manager, which provides money for the players to spend. When the players close the storefront after picking items, the storefront sends a message to the text displayer to give the next set of instructions—in this case, to place items to help defend the treasure. This opens another storefront toy and another money manager toy are activated so that players can access the storefront—by pressing the Toy Box Editor button—to purchase more items with the money they collect by defeating enemies. The editor manager then opens and lets the players place as many objects as desired until the money runs out.
Because this game has two different purposes for the storefront—setting up and during the game—you need two sets of storefronts and money managers. This allows you to also have different prices for the two storefronts.
When the player is finished placing items and closes the storefront, the enemy wave generator begins creating groups of enemies to charge and attack the treasure. In the enemy wave generator, you can choose the types of enemies and how many appear in each wave. For this game, there is only one wave. If the enemies destroy the treasure, then the game is over. However, if the player defeats all the enemies with the treasure intact, then the result is a victory.
Use the enemy wave generator to configure the types and numbers of enemies. If you connect this toy to locator toys, you can specify where you want the enemies to appear.
Try playing the game to see how everything works within the game. Then take some time to select each toy with the magic wand and look at all the properties and connections with other toys. The designers have left a note for you with descriptions about the game. Just walk over the toys with a “?” over them.
