Scope is one of the trickiest concepts to understand in Gimkit Creative.
The first thing to understand before diving into scope is Device State. Device State refers to a piece of information regarding a particular device that might change!
For example, the Counter has a Device State for the current count!
That number on the Counter can increase and decrease. It can update & change. Anything that can update and change is considered Device State.
Scope allows you to decide who those changes show up for when the Device State changes.
Whenever you set scope, you’ll have three options:
- global
- team
- player
global will update the device state for everybody on the map.
team will update the device state for everybody on the triggering player’s team.
player will update the device state for only the triggering player.
Going back to the Counter, you have the option to set the Count Scope. What you set here will depend on the number you’re tracking.
For example, if you wanted to count the number of questions you have answered correctly, you would set this scope to player. This way, everybody has a different number that shows the number of questions they have answered correctly.
If you wanted to track how many times your team has tagged other players, you would set the scope to team. This way, each team will see a different count reflecting the total number of tags from all the players on their team.
If you wanted to have a count of the combined total of everybody’s knockouts, you would set the scope to global. This would mean one single number for all players, and every knockout from any player would contribute towards increasing the count.
The scope you pick for each situation depends on what kind of game you’re designing!
For example, let’s imagine there is a barrier blocking players from moving ahead. But there’s a button that deactivates the barrier.
When the button is pressed, should the barrier disappear for everybody, the player who pressed the button’s team, or just the player who pressed the button?
Setting the scope will define the rules for what happens in your game.
Scope can be a tricky concept to understand because it involves thinking not just about a single person playing your game, but a group of people and how one action might impact players differently.
You’ll get more comfortable with it over time, so keep practicing!