What is the importance of Mathematics?

Introduction

Many people would discuss the importance of Math in various real-life situations: economics, health,
consumerism, all the activities and routines humans do. However, not many people talked enough about
the importance of Math in gaming. Perhaps Math and Gaming are not the words you would usually
come together. The former is formal and educational, while the latter is for casual or leisure. In reality,
Math plays a more important role in gaming than you currently think. How? Let's tackle first the creation
of games themselves.

Game Creation

To create a game, you would need an expertise in game development and game design. Those two fields
are important, video game designers are involved in all the creative aspects of making a game, game
developers or programmers are responsible for the actual coding and technical aspects of putting a
game together.

What are the main branches of math used in game development? Matthew S. Stenquist listed the topics
that are applied to the technical and design creation of games

 Algebra
 Discrete Mathematics
 Trigonometry
 Calculus
 Linear Algebra
 Applied mathematics

And much much more....

Some of the most important math used in games.

 Dot Product, Cross Product.

 Scaling Vectors, Unit Vectors, and Vectors.
 Reflection, Matrices.
 Scalar Manipulation.
 COS,SIN,TAN.
 Delta Time.
 Domain and Range.

What can math do in game design?

 Fluid water simulation.

 Animation.
 Algorithms.
 Game engine architecture.
 Gameplay scripting. (walking, shooting, jumping)
 Analytics and data mining. (analyzing players interaction)
  Timers programming (delta time, etc).
 Physics programming (inertia, friction, etc).
 Graphics/Shaders programming (matrices,etc).
 Path finding/AI.
 Procedural level design.
 Handling Polygon rendering.

And much much more.

Genres

The games I usually play are Clash of Clans, NBA 2K, Minecraft, and Need for Speed. And each of them
belongs in a certain genre that Mathematics in them work differently from one another.

Strategy games like Clash of Clans focuses on skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. It
emphasizes strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges. The goal of the game is to achieve
total destruction or what the game calls it 3 stars on an enemy village or base, with the use of available
troops, heroes, and spells. The thing is there are various types of bases your enemies can have and this
is where your critical thinking or logical skills are applied. Formulating the most efficient army to defeat
a base is required, in order to progress even further in the game.

In NBA 2K, a sport type of video game, there are usually scenarios which require the player to overcome
or solve (Tassi, 2016). Players need to think strategically to work out the best way to defend and counter
offensive plays of the opposing team and create efficient offensive displays to shoot the ball into the
basket at the same time. All of these uses logic and decision making. Physics come into play in these
type of games, because it enforces close to real-life physics. Statistics is also applied to these games to
record every players aspect of the sport.
Sources:

https://www.wgu.edu/blog/video-game-industry-jobs-designer-developer1910.html#:~:text=While
%20video%20game%20designers%20are,of%20putting%20a%20game%20together.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/10/21/this-is-the-math-behind-super-mario/?
sh=6fcb3a692154

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Clans