Computer Science Club Recap (9/20/2010)

That was an awesome meeting that we had today, guys! A lot of stuff got done. Before I forget, I just want to recap on everything that we discussed today.

Game Concepts
We started the meeting today by discussing some game concepts. I was originally going to do a presentation, but I found some recording that I made a while back that basically summarize what I was trying to talk about. I originally made these videos for some other group that I was in, but it applies perfectly for this situation. The videos basically explain some basic concepts that apply to every game. It's kinda boring, but you should still watch it. It's important.

Show Off
After that, I took a bit of time to show off my own projects, in order to demonstrate how the same concepts are applied even in much more complicated games. In addition, I discussed why all of the games we make will be coded from scratch. Remember, this is a computer science club, not a game making club, and the goal is to learn the fundamental concepts behind how something works. Games are an effective and fun way to do this.

Star of Doom:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWr9koi1YlM

Voxelvania:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgrLLN1YFXQ

Game in 5 Minutes
After that, I did something cool! Well... Not so much... Basically, I made a game in less than 5 minutes (Swaroop was timing). A really simple game, but an interactive one nonetheless. You basically just move a cube around the screen.

Prototypes
After that, we discussed some of our short term goals. Our eventual goal is to tackle that wizardry-esque RPG, with full battle and graphics etc. To start though, its best if we move in increments. At some point, I want to create a simple text based adventure games, because these can help to teach you many of the basics of programming. If you don't know what that is supposed to mean, I have a simple prototype that you can try.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2727127/HHSCSC/Prototypes/TextAdventure/game.html

Star of Doom Progress!

I've made some considerable progress with Star of Doom! The basic framework is laid in place (1605 lines of C++!), and I've begun to setup a workflow for creating maps and other content. Take a look at this video of what I have so far:

Traveling Down Memory Lane

    So I've been missing for a few days. My mind has been drifting in and out of reality, adventuring into the deep recesses of my past. Basically, I've been playing a bunch of old games that I used to play as a little kid. I found a bunch of my old CD's, some in good condition, while others mostly battered up. Of these games, many were LEGO games. Most of the games were only average, but they symbolize something much more to me: the past.

LEGO Island 2: The Brickster's Revenge

    An adventure of epic proportions spanning multiple islands, interesting and varied characters, and a really cool story. What else did a game need? In my opinion, this game was a true LEGO game. It really matched the feeling of goofing around with LEGO sets, and making weird scenarios to thrust mini-figs into. Oh, and there was the skate park music.

LEGO Island Xtreme Stunts

    What do I remember about this game? Epic music. Just epic music. LEGO Island Xtreme Stunts was a fitting end to the series, sporting a bunch of cool mini-games in true LEGO Island fashion. I had a blast exploring the island and getting all of the collectibles.

Hot Wheels Stunt Track Challenge

    You know what race I remember from this game? This one. And I had an amazing flashback while playing Koopa Cape Mario Kart Wii. The game had awesome fast paced racing, as well as a bunch of mini-games to spice up the experience. I never actually beat this game, and I got stuck on the first challenge in the final area, but what I did play was a blast.

LEGO Stunt Rally

    Lego Stunt Rally wasn't exactly my favorite game, but one thing gave it the privilege of being on this list: the track creator. I have no idea how much of time I spent creating random tracks and racing on them. It was just amazingly fun! I also made countless attempts at going off the borders of the map, but I re-spawned each time.

LEGO Racers 2

    LEGO Racers 2 was a pretty awesome game. Although it bears little resemblance to the original other than the concept, it was still fun to play. My favorite part was exploring the several thematically distinct areas that the game had to offer. Multi-player was pretty awesome too.

LEGO Racers

    LEGO Racers was great! Just amazingly fun! The game had great artistic style, and left a lasting impression on me. What's great is the physics, which stick to what's fun, as opposed to what looks real. Multi-player was a blast to play with friends, and I loved leaving them in the dust with my amazing knowledge of the shortcuts! It's also noteworthy that this game is 11 years old, yet installs and runs without a hitch on my Vista Core i7.

Sonic Adventure DX

    Sonic Adventure DX is probably one of the best Sonic games that I have ever played (Shares the spot with Sonic Adventure 2 Battle). Someday, I'd like to play the original Dreamcast games. This game was probably one of the best games that I have ever played, and exemplified everything good about Sonic. It had cool music too! Multiple characters, fast paced game-play, great environments, and an awesome story all came together to create this work of art, which I still enjoy today.

Star of Doom

     Ok. This is it. I'm going to finish this game. I've failed before, but this time, I can finish it. Watch out world! Here comes Star of Doom!

And development begins...


Using Ogitor to block out a basic map


NPC Conversations

Voxel Terrain Engine Update

Just finished version 0.3 (Voxelvania) of the engine. This has a fully playable demo, with three maps and 1 player, 3 bot death-matches.

You can download the game here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?c1rj9jbtzxjddc9

Voxel Terrain Engine

Over the past week, I've been working on a simple voxel terrain engine, just to amuse myself. This happens to be my first project using purely OpenGL for rendering (In the past, I've used DirectX, and a variety of rendering engines). The demo is pretty simple, and took me about 3 days to make.


The voxels are rendered by a brute force method with voxels that are not touching air being ignored. I'm planning on adding some kind of partitioning system along with lod, so that much larger maps can be rendered.


I'm considering making a simple shooter game around this, where the destruction of the environment is actually part of strategy.


More Info + Download Link: http://varunramesh.net/portfolio/right/VoxelEngine/

Physics Selector Tool

I've just added a simple tool that allows you to define physics boundaries by tracing them out on an image. The saved .physics files are then loaded by a simple component.

In other news, the next major release of the engine should be ready in a few weeks, one the example game has matured a bit more.