CIS587 Game Design Implementation Professor Maxim Assignment 4 Final Game Design Document Michael Westra Abstract DragonGem is a puzzle game based loosely on Tetris Towers Columns and Dr Mario The story line is that you are the typical greedy adventurer that is trying to steal the dragon s gems The only problem is that the dragon has decided to give you a taste of your own medicine and throws handfuls of gems at you You need to get three gems of the same color in a row in order to dissolve the gem s spell If the gems pile up too high your character will be crushed and the game will be over Game Genre This game fits into the general matching puzzle type of game This includes games like Tetris Columns Dr Mario Towers Memory Connect 4 etc Game Appearance See the sections What is it like Interface Mockup and User Guide for more detail Product Specification Production Team Description Lead Developer Michael Westra Programming Michael Westra Game Art Michael Westra Game Description and storyline Michael Westra Quality Assurance and Game Testing Michael Valerie Westra Target Audience The target audience is any game player who likes a small distraction from the blood soaked gore fests like Quake It is also appropriate for children and adults Basically anyone who loved Tetris should like this game Game Play Time It is estimated that it should take upwards of 10 15 minutes to reach the faster levels of the game depending on the player s skill The play length before becoming tiresome should be equal with similar games in the genre e g Tetris Columns or Dr Mario Production Tools The game will be developed using the Visual Studio 6 0 with DirectX and the Lamothe add on libraries Photoshop and PaintShop Pro have been used to prepare the graphics and backgrounds The sounds were taken from windows and the Lamothe CD See section title Development Environment for more details User Guide How to install the game To install the game simply extract the zip file into a directory and execute the dragon exe executable The game requires that DirectX is installed See Microsoft documentation for details as well The game has been tested to run under Windows98 but it currently does not run under Windows NT The archive file contains the following files File Purpose Dragon exe Main program executable Back bmp Background image Blocks bmp Block sprite map Pause bmp Paused Game overlay Over bmp Game Over overlay Level wav Sound to play upon reaching a new level Gameover wav Sound to play when game is over Remove wav Sound to play when removing blocks Flip wav Sound to play when flipping blocks Drop wav Sound to play when dropping blocks How to play the game The game starts with the background screen shown below The object is to place blocks called gems with color types adjacent in order to form matches This causes the blocks to be removed from the playing field while scoring points Blocks can be positioned by moving them left and right and also turning the block over switching the top and bottom blocks The gems blocks always fall in random pairs If three or more of any color are positioned along a row column or diagonal the blocks are dispelled and the blocks above them drop down to fill in the open space The blocks that fall into place can then match three in a row in a similar manner and this can go on for several iterations if the player is skilled in setting up the blocks The game is controlled using the keyboard using the following valid keys Up Rotates block by swapping the top and bottom gems Left Moves the block to the left one column Right Moves the block to the right one column Down Space Drops the block onto the stack Escape Exits the game P Pauses the game Space Starts a new game once the player has lost the current game The blocks consist of two gems fused together that fall and must be positioned in unison but they dissolve independently once at the bottom Blocks come in two varieties the standard colored blocks which make up the majority and a few special blocks that occur infrequently The following lists the various blocks and describes their purpose Red Red gem block Blue Blue gem block Purple Purple gem block Orange Orange gem block Green Green gem block Cyan Cyan gem block Yellow Yellow gem block Skull This is a normally unmatchable block dead space on board The only way to get rid of skulls is to match them with other skulls the rainbow block or blow them up with a bomb This difficulty is that they tend to be rare and cause a purposeful disruption to the normal rhythm of the game Rainbow The rainbow gem matches any color when placed in its final position This block matches all colors and special blocks simultaneously by nature If placed with care this means that it can match several blocks in rows columns and diagonals giving a large reward if blocks in several of these directions match and each direction can be in a different color Bomb The bomb block removes random number of blocks adjacent to it This block can be quite useful or disruptive depending on luck and keen placement It can be helpful when used to remove unwanted blocks but it can also backfire and remove blocks that have been setup to yield several matches Points are scored for dispelling blocks The more blocks that are dispelled in one turn the larger the score The following chart gives an example Number of Blocks Number of Points 3 90 4 160 5 250 6 360 7 490 8 640 9 810 Levels increase for every 2000 points that are earned Two things happen at higher levels the blocks fall at successively faster rates and more skull blocks are given relative to the other special bonus blocks Game Specification What is it like Play consists of falling gems blocks that the player may rotate and move left or right before they fall to the bottom of the screen If the player becomes bored he she can drop the gems to the bottom of the screen prematurely Gems consist of two gems of different colors fused together The magic that created the gems is dissolved if three gems of the same color are aligned at least three in a row The gems above the dissolved gems then fall down to cover the hole created The more gems that are dissolved at once the higher the score achieved Once enough points are scored the player advances to the next level There are several special blocks that will appear from time to time The skull gem occupies a space in the game board but will not match with any of the other gems except for itself The rainbow gem has the special property
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