Draft Points System in the first stage!

So you know how I've been like I need to make a points system? well I think I might have made one, a basic one anyway. I'd like to talk about this a little bit how I did it in case it's helpful for somebody.


So I had no clue where to start so first I went in to gamemaker and arranged all the blocks by color so I can create a point system based on color pairs. I wanted a pattern but I didn't know how to limit the points. So I decided what's the highest number I want to go with as a point value. I decided 20 was a nice round solid number not that large but not too small, which is what I wanted because I have a bonus block of 50 points and I make one or 2 others but you'll have to work to get to them.
I also wanted the highest values to be the largest blocks and the smallest value with the smallest blocks so I went with a loose guideline of splitting a number in thirds for the sizes, but I also didn't want a double point in any sub section of blocks (Large, Medium, Small) [ex. two blocks with the value of 4 in the medium block category]. So the fun starts.

Pre-point system arranged blocks in gamemaker

Before I did the point assigning I first made a color chart on paper, using normal washable markers in a sketch book. I made what you could call a primitive excel-sheet splitting it by color using a maker to represent the color , and size making 3 collums to work with. I then marked with a tick mark (or a check as some call it) the sizes that go with that color. It did more of a preparation on how to figure out what strategy I was going to use to create the system than anything else since I mostly referenced the blocks in gamemaker since it was easier to read but it was helpful none-the-less.

Color Chart

Now comes the "fun" part, point assigning, it was at this point that I went through the point limitation idea and thought process. I counted how many large blocks there were and I made value decisions based on that. I was going to go with factors of twenty but I ended up using another route, which was a better one because all the factors can't be split by 3 without going in to decimals and gamemaker doesn't use decimals in point-values. There are 6 blocks of each (I forgot until now! lol) but since I am going with thirds as a general though not hardlined theme I went with 3 blocks going by multiples of 6 and 3 blocks multiples of 5 skipping five so there would be a higher point value.

So the large blocks ended up being:

Point Chart

• 6
• 12
• 18
• 10
• 15
• 20

To make it easier to remember I used my markers again and marked the color and made columns like before only each column had a point value assigned to the color, but the colors stayed uniform. If a block existed in that color it got a point value, if it didn't it got an X to say this doesn't exist. I noticed I forgot to mark one the unmarked on has a value of 6.

I didn't end up being able to split in 3rds in the end, a few numbers were repeated more than once in any given column and I didn't want that so I had to be more loose; but it was a helpful general guidline to get my mind rolling.


I'm not saying much will change, but I still have to look over the points see if I can make it maybe slightly more coherent but for now I'm still happy I made it this far!


Here's what the full draft page looks like:

See how I added notes.

So that's my update! Two in one week! I'm feeling pretty good about this.


I hope it was helpful to read my process maybe it will help you find your own.
I'm going to post this on my main blog to as a semi tutorial as well.


~ God Bless ~

~ Firefly