SNOWGLOBE - Columbia Universityeaddy/publications/SNOWGLOB… · Web viewsnowglobe. design. doc. Video Game Technology and Design The CRACK Team: David Sturman & Bernie Yee. COMS

“It’s addictive” ™

snowglobedesign

doc

Video Game Technology and Design The CRACK Team:David Sturman & Bernie YeeCOMS W4995-03 Marc EaddyFall 2003 Moe Nasser

Santiago Ordonez

Snowglobe Design Doc

Erik Peterson

[ 2 ]


Table of ContentsGame Summary.............................................................................................................3

Delivery Date..............................................................................................................3Category.......................................................................................................................3Similar Titles...............................................................................................................3Look................................................................................................................................3High Concept..............................................................................................................3Key Points....................................................................................................................3Game Summary.........................................................................................................3

Background.............................................................................................................4Game Vision............................................................................................................6Game Play................................................................................................................7

Technology......................................................................................................................9Technologies...............................................................................................................9Development Approach..........................................................................................9

System Requirements...............................................................................................10Schedule.........................................................................................................................10Future Work...................................................................................................................12

Laser Guide...............................................................................................................12Target Mark...............................................................................................................13Brick Puzzles.............................................................................................................14Separating Camera and Paddle Movement..................................................14Snowflakes.................................................................................................................14Water effects............................................................................................................15Power-ups...................................................................................................................15

Multiple balls.........................................................................................................15Wider paddle.........................................................................................................15Laser gun................................................................................................................15Super ball...............................................................................................................15Matrix-like "bullet time” ball...........................................................................16

Game System...............................................................................................................16Keyboard Controls..................................................................................................16

Paddle Displacement.........................................................................................16Catching the ball.................................................................................................16User Information..................................................................................................17

Post-Mortem..................................................................................................................17

[ 3 ]


Game Summary

Delivery Date

Friday, December 12th, 2003 (Fall 2003)

Category

Action – Arcade

Similar Titles

Breakout, Arkanoid, 3D Breakout

Look

3rd Person 3D

High Concept

Snowglobe is a fast-paced arcade style 3D game in the same vein as the classic Breakout and Arkanoid games. Set inside a virtual snow globe with a castle in the middle, the player spins a paddle around the globe and tries to hit a ball to destroy the castle brick by brick.

Key Points

Snowglobe excels in bringing the original concept of 2D Breakout to a highly dynamic 3D scenario. The game gives the player the opportunity of not only enjoying the challenges of a 3D arcade-action game, but also the advantage of taking pleasure in an extraordinary well-rendered 3D scene. Snowglobe is governed by environmental components such as 3D physics and circular motion.

Game Summary

The legacy that 2D Breakout has established among the arcade community has been considered and preserved in Snowglobe.

[ 4 ]


Nonetheless, the game is original in the sense that difficult 3D variables such as real physics were brought into the game without affecting game play and the player’s intention. Furthermore, considerable work went into designing a game that offers an arcade experience in a pseudo 3D real environment.

Background

When approaching the creation of a game The CRACK Team decided to alter and re-introduce a simple game to the public in a creative way. The game that

CRACK chose was Breakout. Breakout is a classic game that has been around for a very long time.

Our game design started with a simple format where the player controlled a paddle similar to Pong. However, instead of trying to hit the ball past your opponent, you tried to break bricks above you while still protecting the ball from passing your paddle.

The first alteration that CRACK wanted to undertake was introducing a 3rd dimension to Breakout. CRACK's game began as a 3D version of Breakout. Simply adding a 3rd

dimension to the already existing Breakout resulted in a simple and somewhat boring layout.

The first challenge that arose from this new format was the camera. Where could CRACK place the camera in this scene to show the important and critical areas of action while keeping the player oriented so that controls remained plausible?

[ 5 ]


Through group brainstorming, CRACK iterated the possible designs multiple times but there did not seem to be a simple solution. The only way to show critical areas was to move constantly, but that made control and orientation impossible. The layout needed to be changed.

When creating a new layout CRACK wanted to keep some important elements of the original Breakout: a ball falling down, a paddle that hit it up, and the destruction of bricks.

To simplify camera angles and control CRACK decided to restrict the controls to external rotation of 360 on a track. After the general camera motions have been decided it is easy to construct the rest of the game simply because all major actions must exist in the space that the camera can always see: inside the circle. The paddle, the ball, and the area that you are protecting with the paddle must be inside this circle. Since the camera is on a circular track, controls would be simplified by placing the paddle on a similar track. Since the paddle only moves over the area it is trying to protect, this circular track becomes a “moat”.

When viewed in 2D the new design is flawless; however, the whole point of this new design was a 3D game. In 3D, there is one major

problem with this game. How will the ball get from the paddle to the bricks and back again? The introduction of a boundary around and above our circle is necessary.

An optimal boundary is one that focuses the ball towards the bricks and the paddle. The first suggestion for a boundary is spherical because of the

tendency to send the ball towards the center.

[ 6 ]


Game Vision

The vision of the game was to create a 3D Breakout-style game that is unique, more playable and more entertaining. There are many 3D Breakout games. However, our game is set in a unique Snowglobe environment. This opens up many visually interesting opportunities from a game design point of view, such as the ability to introduce special effects like swirling snowflakes, simulating the water in the Snowglobe, and showing a distorted view of the outside room from inside the Snowglobe.

In addition, most 3D Breakout games do not handle the transition from 2D to 3D very well from a playability perspective. Although the rendering is done in 3D, you are still playing a 2D game. For example, you are still only moving a paddle, albeit a 3D paddle, back and forth using two keys.

The design layout of 3D Breakout kept the key elements of the original game such as: a ball falling down, a paddle that must hit it and the destruction of bricks. To simplify camera angles and control manipulation of the game the decision was to restrict the controls to a circular track. Considering the position of the camera rotating around

a circular track, the controls were simplified by placing the paddle on camera view. The paddle floats around a “moat” track arena, which encircles the central brick structure. It is the responsibility of the player to protect this moat to continue game play.

The ball’s trajectory was free to move across the whole playing area. The region to

[ 7 ]


which the ball could move depended on the design bounds of the arena. That is, any shape that will limit the playing area. Such shape could be anything and ideally, it would change according to the level of play. However, due to the nature of the design we decided that the appropriate shape was a circular one. Such shape fits accurately with the camera’s rotational position and the paddle’s circular movement. In addition, we decided to close the shape, not as an inverted cone, but rather as a hemisphere. This gives the ball an angular trajectory that for the most part points towards the center of the arena, which is the place where the brick structure is located. Based on this design decisions we name our game Snowglobe.

Game Play

Snowglobe has an external viewing model. The camera is always looking at the paddle from behind. The player has the camera’s view, thus the control of the paddle occurs from outside the world. The player’s dexterity is critical to keep the ball from falling into the moat. The left and arrow keys command the direction of the paddle. The up and down keys allows the paddle to move forward and backwards. However, the space for movement is limited as the space between the paddle and the edges of the structure is small.

Snowglobe allows the player to formulate intention. As mentioned above, the player has to defend the moat at all cost. His defense must be strategic as the direction of the ball depends on the angle that it intersects the paddle. A good intersection will lead the ball to hit a specific brick.

This leads to the second intention of destroying the structure. If the player is accurate, s/he will be able to capture the ball and directly shoot the brick of his/her choice. Furthermore, since the game is a true 3D experience the player is required to track the ball in three-dimensional space. This adds an extra level of complexity, and for that matter a challenge, that forces the player to develop new skills. Snowglobe requires technique and ability. With practice, the player should be able to plan for fast ways of destroying the bricks in the least amount of time and advance to the next level.

The feeling is that our game design is innovative and brings the player unique elements that no other 3D Breakout games has ever presented. For the most part, 3D Breakout games are a representation of a 3D environment with 2D characteristics. We wanted this game to move beyond that common design approach. Our vision was to implement

[ 8 ]


true three-dimensional physical properties to produce a rewarding impact to the player’s experience with the game.

Acceleration was added to the paddle motion to give the affect of realistic motion on the ground and so that the camera is not at a constant velocity. Acceleration is also good for player control in that it allows a player to get to the plane of which the ball is in much more quickly. It also adds a little to the difficulty of the game because the player must anticipate the effects of acceleration when positioning the paddle optimally.

We incorporated ball trails to help the player figure out where the ball is in 3D space. Tracking the ball can get tricky at times because the player can become disoriented and not know where the ball is going to or coming from. A particular example of this is when the ball is coming straight at you or away from you; the player may not be able to tell the difference. Ball trails have added greatly to the game play in that now the player is able to focus on what they are going to do next and not about the position of the ball. Based on user feedback we tweaked the ball trails until they provided the best visual effect.

Another improvement to ball tracking was to add unique collision sounds for each different surface. Previously, in some cases it was hard to tell if the ball actually struck something, for example, if the ball was so far away that the trajectory change was too subtle. In addition, sound made it possible to determine if your paddle blocked the ball or if it just hit the arena near the paddle.

The ability for the player to move the paddle not only left and right but forward and back is of great importance for player intention. This adds another dimension to the game play, difficulty and player control.

We experimented with different paddle shapes and we settled on one that gives the player some control over the ball reflection angle. We also added the ability to “catch” the ball with the paddle. This was proposed after careful consideration of the paddle designs. The idea is that if the player catches the ball, he will be able to shoot the ball in a particular direction. We tested the last prototype in November and added it to Snowglobe as it proved very successful.

[ 9 ]


Technology

Technologies

The CRACK Team decided to take this opportunity to learn a new language that is well integrated with a 3D rendering engine. CRACK used C# and DirectX to implement this relatively simple 3D game because they are well integrated. CRACK used 3D Studio Max to develop the 3D geometries used in the game. Snowglobe is a Windows application that runs off the DirectX 9 drivers.

Development Approach

Our approach was to get the critical aspects of the game implemented first before we started on the bells and whistles. This ensured that at any time we had a playable prototype. We identified the following critical pieces: rendering, performance, camera position, and playability. Rendering means we're able to make our basic 3D game geometry (paddle, ball, moat, bricks) look good.

Performance means we can maintain a reasonable frame rate. We targeted 40 frames per second which became an issue most likely because we are using C# as the implementation language. To overcome this problem one implementation technique was to adjust the code so that the speed of the ball was still being displayed in a continuous manner even while maintaining a high frame rate. If the frame rate dipped or spiked, the ball would still seem as if it was traveling at the same speed from the player’s perspective. This is of extreme importance since easily tracking the ball is key in terms of control. Furthermore, control of the ball is of primary importance for player intention.

Camera position means that we position the camera in such a way as to allow the player to see all the action and at the same time accurately hit the ball with the paddle. This is a major fallacy of most 3D Breakout games so it was critical to get this right early on the development process. Our approach was to have the camera "mounted" on the paddle looking at the middle of the Snowglobe. From the player's perspective, the paddle does not move. Instead, the Snowglobe spins around the paddle. After we prototyped this approach we agreed on keeping that implementation.

[ 10 ]


Playability refers to balancing the difficulty of the game. The game is challenging but not too difficult. Because our game concept is unique this is the one aspect of the game which was the most difficult to implement. We added features such as paddle acceleration, which added realism at the cost of loss of some player control, and forward and backward paddle movements, which gave the player more control over the ball movement.

System Requirements

The game utilizes a moderate amount of video memory as well as processor power. The suggested minimum requirements are as follows:

Hardware:Processor: Pentium III 500 MHzPhysical Memory: 128 Megabytes of RamVideo Memory: 3D Video card with 16 Megabytes of video Ram (32 suggested)Storage: 10 Megabytes of available hard disk space

Software:Operating System: Windows 2000, Windows XPSoftware Dependencies: Microsoft .NET Framework

Schedule

First Iteration:

This first iteration of Snowglobe, implemented the foundation for future iterations. To your left you can see the model displaying basic functionality. We

[ 11 ]


had a ball “with Brittany’s face on it”, already moving freely in 3D space. We also implemented a basic paddle that for this iteration didn’t move. Also, we had implemented a “transparent” brick structure, allowing the player to see the ball’s trajectory at all times. Additionally, the 3D objects were still not trimmed and jagged lines were still present.

[ 12 ]


Second Iteration:

The second iteration of Snowglobe presents a more detailed representation of our vision. To your right you can see that the 3D models have been improved to the point that no more jagged lines are present. Furthermore, the ball adds an important component: “trailing”. This element inserts a fantastic visual effect to Snowglobe and increases game play. The paddle implements movement in either direction. The bricks are now a structure of defined shape and responds dynamically to the ball. In fact, at this point our first implementation of the collision collection engine was already working at an acceptable level. The second iteration also added environmental lighting.

Third Iteration:

To the right stands the fully functional version of our game. Snowglobe now has a well-implemented collision detection engine. Directional as well as specular light was added. The paddle’s new shape allows the player to hit the ball in any direction and with an added effect. The paddle is a polygon formed of 4 lateral surfaces and a

[ 13 ]


horizontal one. Hitting the ball with a particular surface leads the ball to travel in different directions. Furthermore, the paddle is now able to “catch” the ball and shoot it in the direction that the player desires. The ball’s trail was visually improved (looks more like motion blur). Trailing now gives the player an even better idea of the ball’s direction and position.

At this point, we also implemented different levels of play. Each level displays a different brick structure. Each of these structures is unique and eye catching.

The moat now implements a reflective surface giving a sense to the player of a more realistic environment. Furthermore, a reflective moat will help the player predict the ball’s collision trajectory. Notice also Snowglobe’s improved surrounding environment implemented using a “skybox”. We now try to immerse the player in a realistic rendered atmosphere.

Future Work

There were features that due to time constrains we were not able to implement. Listed are some of the elements that we plan to implement in the near future.

Laser Guide

This feature improves player intention. With the laser beam guide the player would be able to intersect the ball accurately. The idea is to have a laser beam travel from the center of the ball to the closest object to which it will collide. Then that particular object will draw a second laser beam following the specular path pointing to the next ball’s collision object based on its current trajectory.

[ 14 ]


The player benefits in two ways. The first laser beam makes it easier for the player to track the ball and defend the moat. The second laser beam allows the user to position the paddle in such a way so that the beam hits one of the bricks. Additionally laser beams beyond the second can be useful for planning shots that are more complex.

Target Mark

This feature allows the player to point the ball in a particular direction. This element will appear once the player has captured the ball with the paddle. Additionally, this feature gives maximum control to pre-determine a short trajectory of the ball allowing the player to plan his next moves.

[ 15 ]


Brick Puzzles

Adding puzzles to the bricks will bring an extra challenge to the player and further enhance game play. The player will need to hit a particular set of bricks in a particular order. Once such sequence has been destroyed, the puzzle will be solved and the player will get in return either an extra life or a power-up of their choice. Greater ball control is key to enabling this type of feature. Without ball control, brick puzzles are impossible to solve.

Separating Camera and Paddle Movement

This would add more control to the game play. The player should be able to move, not only in the paddle direction but also in all directions at any time. In addition to adding to player intention, camera movement gives players the ability to observe, in all angles, the playing arena. As explained before, the reason why we chose to have a fixed point of view was to simplify the game and allow the player to concentrate on destroying the bricks. We feel now that the player will get a better experience from Snowglobe if such camera movements were available.

[ 16 ]


Snowflakes

We would like to add snowflakes, to not only make the game look better and provide the player with extra challenges like making the floor slippery, but also to complement the name of our game, “Snowglobe”. A Snowglobe without snow... What’s wrong with this picture?!

Water effects

This element would add a very nice and realistic visual effect to the game. Before we could implement this element to the game, we must work on the rendering performance of Snowglobe. Currently the game requires a moderate amount of CPU power and memory due to the amount of objects it has to render. We are currently working on optimizing the code to fix this problem. Snowglobe’s next version will feature improved frame rates and rendering time.

Power-ups

Multiple balls

The addition of multiple balls allows the player to utilize his skills to the limit. He has to maintain control and manipulation of the balls hitting different objects and still prevent each one of them from hitting the moat.

Wider paddle

Having a wider paddle available to the player is a great tool. It will allow novices or beginners to have a wider instrument to hit or capture the ball.

Laser gun

Adding a laser gun to the paddle will allow the player to destroy as many bricks as possible in a limited amount of time. The acquisition of a laser gun is based on solving brick puzzles. The gun duration would depend on the amount of points the player has accumulated.

Super ball

[ 17 ]


This is a fabulous feature that was not added to the game only because we were caught by the end of the semester too soon. Yet implementing this element will make the player do whatever is necessary to get it. The “Super ball” is a different type of ball. This particular ball is capable of going through the bricks without bouncing. Once it hits the floor, the ball will explode taking some bricks out as well.

Matrix-like "bullet time” ball

This is an innovative idea that adds a great effect to the ball displacement. When the player uses this feature, the ball will move slower, displaying the trails with the same effect as the bullet’s effect from the movie “The Matrix”. Once the ball is in bullet time mode the player has more time to get to the point of intersection and plan for which brick to destroy next.

Game System

Keyboard Controls

The player has to control the paddle at all times. The paddle moves in a fix rotational manner.

Paddle Displacement

Use the and keys on your keyboard to control the direction of the paddle.

[ 18 ]


Use the ↑ and ↓ keys to move forward and backwards.

Catching the ball

The ball can be caught with the paddle and then shot in any direction using the space bar.

Use the R key to reset the game. If the ball hits the moat, press the C key to continue.

User Information

The lives, level and score are displayed at the bottom of the screen.

[ 19 ]


Post-Mortem

The Snowglobe project gave us an opportunity to develop a game that was original, fun and fairly complex to implement. Within the realms of development, the group was committed to developing a 3D game that was unique and in accordance with what we planned to achieve.

Having a well defined idea of the game early in the design process gave us a great lead and allowed us to be more productive and for the most part always on track. Ideas were constantly pouring into the game design. Each one of us contributed to the functionality of Snowglobe. Marc with his vast experience in program management and development; Eric with his analytical mind and programming skills as well as his knowledge of 3D graphics applications; Moe with his programming abilities and his object-oriented dexterities combined with his sense of humor; and Santiago with his programming knowledge and computer graphics theory background. Our team proved by far to be up to the challenge!

Furthermore, our interaction has fostered our perception of the meaning of the word teamwork. There were many times when we were tired and not willing to give our best, but each of us pushed the team to stay on track and commit to our schedule.

During each or our sessions there was something new to learn and implement. At most of our meetings we actually ended up implementing 1 or 2 previously established goals. This forced us to learn new material extremely fast and use it right away. Members of the Snowglobe team always assisted each other and for that matter help the others accomplish their tasks.

In fact, meeting every week and coding for long hours was of great importance to the success of our project. This provided us with constant interaction and communication. Ideas were dynamically discussed and implemented. Also, we minimize testing time by having the game running in 4 different machines at the same time. Moreover, the implementation of a version control system “CVS” permitted the team to distribute the work efficiently. Thus, at every meeting our productivity level was extremely high.

[ 20 ]


Our first version will be released on December 12th 2003. Although the game is functional, Snowglobe continues to be a project in development. The team has talked about the future of the game and CRACK still feels committed to invest more time to achieve the final product just as we envisioned from the beginning. Snowglobe will be back and next time will be even more addictive!

[ 21 ]

Documents

SNOWGLOBE - Columbia Universityeaddy/publications/SNOWGLOB… · Web viewsnowglobe. design. doc. Video Game Technology and Design The CRACK Team: David Sturman & Bernie Yee. COMS