Game Design Project Timeslice Due Date 12 20 2006 Class CIS 487 Professor Bruce Maxim Time 4 35 PM 5 55 PM By Jorden Lowe Peter Wilkins Table of Contents Overview 3 Game Mechanics 4 Overview 5 Camera Position 5 User Interface Design 5 Replaying and Saving 6 Control Summary 7 Game Play Details 7 Cut Scenes 8 Storytelling 8 Level Summary 8 Artificial Intelligence 9 Opponent AI 9 Player Detection 9 Motion 10 Path Finding 10 Special Actions 10 Combat attack evasion damage 10 Non player Characters 10 Puzzles and Traps 11 Game Elements 12 Items e g data dictionary 12 Character Bibles 12 Story Overview 14 Storyboard 14 Background Plot Summary 21 Game Progression 21 Setting 23 Introduction 23 Flowchart 23 Level and Scene Details 25 Lessons Learned 25 Bibliography 29 2 Overview Timeslice is a top down shooter The game takes place in the future on the brink of an alien invasion The player controls a prototype government fighter jet capable of space travel The player must defend earth from the imminent invasion and prevent any future threat from the aliens To defeat the aliens the player s jet is equipped with a high powered laser weapon with a high rate of fire The enemy however will not be an easy target The aliens are capable of quick movements while continually firing upon the player Minimum Hardware Requirements 500 MHz process or equivalent 128 MB RAM Game Requirements Windows 2000 XP Net Framework 2 0 Latest DirectX A monitor that supports 640 x 480 3 Peter Wilkins completed Enemy AI Loading of Bitmaps Drawing BOB s Gamestate logic Sound Jorden Lowe completed Documentation Health System Collision detection Enemy scripting 4 Game Mechanics Overview This will describe the game mechanics of our game Camera Position The position of the camera is above the player s ship The background moves downward giving the user the appearance that they are moving up the screen User Interface Design At the main menu the player will be able to select from New game and exit Red highlights the text that the user would like to select from 5 This screenshot shows the user interface during game play The user will have Health and Armor readings at the lower right hand corner In the lower left hand corner is the number of lives left Replaying and Saving The game has a pause feature which will allow the user to pause the game for a moment This will not resume if the user exits the game or starts a new game 6 Control Summary Menu Arrow Up Move up the list Arrow Down Move down the list Enter key Select an item from the list In Game Arrow Up Moves the ship forward Arrow Left Moves the ship left Arrow Right Moves the ship right Arrow Down Moves the ship backward Spacebar Fire Continue Escape key Pauses the game and returns to the menu Game Play Details The game play is reminiscent of games like 1942 and Raiden where you look down on top of your aircraft and shoot oncoming enemies You use a combination of the arrow keys and space bar to dodge incoming fire and destroy as many enemies as possible Each level will consist of several waves of enemies which the player will be 7 required to destroy all of them before proceeding to the next round If the player dies before reaching the next level they will have to repeat that level We have incorporated 2 levels with a large set of enemy waves at the end of level 2 Upon surviving the final waves you win Cut Scenes The first scene is showing the player ship taking off from the secluded human base This will lead into the start of level 1 During the cut scene the player will have no control over the actions of the plane Storytelling The terran home world Earth has finally made it to the deepest depths of space In visiting the stars there were discoveries that showed more intelligent life in the far reaches of space In sending a probe to the origin of what seems to be the alien home world it sends back interference Before Earth could adjust the signal the probe is lost Now near the orbit of the moon are numerous massive objects These objects produce too much radiation to be asteroids Earth is now at high alert and has pulled out its prototype battleship The invasion has begun and you must engage the enemy on your own turf Good Luck Level Summary Level 1 The first level will take place on Earth This will be the scene of the alien invasion 8 This level will start of slow in order for the player to get used to the controls and then enemies The enemies of this level will consist of both ground and air units The ground units will be tanks and or turrets The air units will be weaker alien ships that are somewhat easy to destroy The player can be hit by enemy fire from any of the opponents and vice versa Collisions however can only occur with air units At the end of this level a transition will move the player to the setting of level 2 Level 2 This level will take place in space It will start off at the same intensity as middle to late level 1 At first the enemies will be the same as the ones encountered in the first level As the level progresses the player will be introduced to new deadlier units The number of enemies on the screen at one time will increase as the level progresses The end of the level will be a large wave of enemies that the player must overcome This level will be comprised mostly of air units since the setting is space Artificial Intelligence Opponent AI Each enemy is given a scripted path to travel As the enemy moves along that path it constantly tracks the location of the player Each enemy rotates and fires in the direction of the player Player Detection Each enemy determines a vector from its current position to the position of the player The resulting vector is normalized and compared with the normalized positive x 9 axis vector in order to determine the angle of rotation Motion Each enemy moves according to its given scripted path and rotates according to the player s position on the screen Path Finding The enemy is given a set of directional vectors that tell it to move in a specific direction for x amount of distance where x is an integer describing the distance in pixels Special Actions Enemies have no special abilities beyond player tracking and standard attack Combat attack evasion damage The weapons of the enemy ships are small circular plasma The enemies do not attempt to evade the players Each enemy type has a unique value of damage that they cause The larger ships cause 20 damage to health and 10 to armor The smaller ships cause 10 damage to health or
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