Finished Critique and Presentation

29th November, 2008

Friday saw possibly the first final deadline for a piece of work this year, the Design for Entertainment Systems game critique. Entitled ‘A Critique of Dungeon Keeper: The Subterranean World’ it explores the techniques behind the immersive world created by Bullfrog’s original Dungeon Keeper.

Introduction

Dungeon Keeper was released in 1997 by Peter Molyneux’s Bullfrog Productions and was quickly succeeded by a Deeper Dungeons expansion and more importantly a Gold Edition that featured all of the combined previous efforts and a map editor that with a little bit of work could be installed and used to build your own levels. For me it was one of the most engaging of the early PC games owing to a number of reasons, teaching me quite a few things about how to structure a successfully enthralling Real Time Strategy game, as well as having a few quirky concepts that I have yet to see repeated since. But most of all it showed me what I look for in a game that I truly enjoy and hence influenced my own ideas for designs.

This essay intends to discuss how the game created a unique and immersive game world which translated into many, many hours of play from what was really a rather limited tile set with unassuming objectives.

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Game Development

23rd November, 2008

Here is a little screenshot of what I’ve been developing for our Games Module game. Basically it’s been world generation and character control, and lots of difficulty getting a decent collision system going.

I started off with using a hitTest function on all the surrounding cells only (9 in total for the sake of using hardly any CPU), but this led to issues where the character would get permanently stuck a little-way into one of the walls. Not good…

Instead I’ve implemented my own system where I have a function that tests whether the target location, ie. where the player wants to go, is solid or not, and returns true or false as to whether they can move there or not.

The Project Model

22nd November, 2008

Here is a diagram to demonstrate my final year Project concept as an interactive process between the user and a virtual space:

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Project Icons

19th November, 2008

When I work on vector icons I am usually viewing them very magnified so it is a shock when I zoom out to see the final product. As ever this was the case with my three Project icons, so I decided to save them at 400% before using smaller versions in the upcoming Project Model deadline.

The ear and headphone:

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Sunset Photo

16th November, 2008

Here I have merged a few photos of a cloudy sunset one evening, quite pleased with the result even if I had to make a few compromises with the overall contrast:

Larger image

Some Photos

15th November, 2008

Here are a few photos I’ve managed to take despite being very busy with my final year work.

Caterpillar

A strange caterpillar that my dad had no idea what it was, which probably means it’s not from around these parts.

Synergy Games

Rob and Tom at their computer screens and below is Tom playing about with the arcade-style game controller that we will eventually be using to play the game in a social environment.

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Experimental Analogue Inputs

13th November, 2008

It was suggested that before I go about planning and building a PCB to take biofeedback readings from a person to push as a stream of analogue data into a computer, I should see how easily I can get such information into C++, DirectX and of course eventually media player.

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The Game Theory

10th November, 2008

So imagine this situation:

Player One has already been blocked by Player Two and there is one route to the finish line remaining. Player Two is attempting to make it as difficult as possible for Player One to complete the level by playing competatively, so makes a dash to block off the remaining route. But in doing so, the world responds by changing both the player’s routes to allow passage to Player One and disadvantage Player 2.

In seeing the consequences of playing competatively will the players then develop more advanced strategies of playing, either by adapting their behaviour to act neutrally within the world or even come full circle and achieve levels by cooperative gameplay.

In fact what comes next is figuring out a way to make allowing the other player to win be mutually or even more beneficial for yourself.