Martyrs wrote: ↑21 June 2021, 06:28
If not? Why? Can they be implemented?
The why depends on the developer, the framework games are developed in, and the history of BGA.
From the developer perspective: creating an undo is a significant amount of extra work. In an effort to get a playable version rolled out as quickly as possible, this addition is sometimes omitted. It is
suggested that all new games have this feature, but there is little incentive to add it to older games.
From the framework perspective: Game pieces being displayed work very similarly to physical game pieces: they exist in one area of the screen, and are moved to new places. Undoing a move requires reversing all the movement that has been done so far, or reloading the game box and moving the pieces from off screen onto their places.
From the history of BGA perspective: BGA was originally designed as a full monitor/mouse browser interface. The rise of mobile devices was not supported, and the cries of "my fingers are thick and I hit the wrong area of the screen, I need an undo" were not welcomed. This is changing, but still causes some resistance to implementation of an undo.
Then, too, there are issues with clock management (If I undo my turn, do I get any extra time?) and the irritation of players trying several moves to see what the game state is after each one. The thought is that players should plan their complicated moves, not make others wait on movement and undos. Also, computers can't tell if a move is a misclick or not; it's easier at a physical table to notice.
As far as implementation: yes, virtually any game
could have an undo/reset implemented. However, all development is by volunteers, and it is difficult to find a volunteer to go through old code (especially someone else's) to implement a feature that is not needed.
