Game Name:

 

Armada 2004

 

Update 4/6/04

update.html

Update 4/22/04

milestone2.html

Update 5/11/04

postmortem.htm

Development Team:

Michael Phillip Blain (mblain) and Christopher Yeung (cyy)

Game Description:

 

In Armada 2004, the player oversees and commands a fleet of space ships and fighters towards the ultimate goal of destroying the enemy fleet's mother ship. Along the way, the player will vie for control of different planets in the galaxy by engaging in combat with the enemy. The victors of each battle will control the planet and have the opportunity to build shipyards, mines, or bases. Upon entering combat, the player will be placed in the cockpit of one of his fighters where he'll personally ensure his side's victory in a topdown action battle sequence. The game can be played in singleplayer mode against the computer's strategic and dogfighting AIs or in multiplayer mode, with hotseat controls for the strategy campaign and split screen mode for the dogfighting. The entire game concept is based upon the 1993 ORIGIN Systems Inc. title, Wing Commander Armada. The dogfighting concept is based upon the game SubSpace, the original creators of which remain a mystery to us at the moment.

 

Game Features:

 

  • Turn-based strategic combat and resource management warfare
  • Action-based space dogfighting combat
  • Singleplayer mode and hotseat multiplayer mode
  • Three different classes of fighters, light, medium, and heavy, and wo fighters in each class.

Note: The dogfighting portion of the game can easily be dropped and replaced with auto-calculating battles if time does not permit.

 

Technical Features:

 

Strategy Warfare

  • Overhead view of galaxy
  • Miniature spacecraft models
  • Planet menu interface, for mining, shipbuilding, etc...

Dogfighting

  • Split screen view of the action
  • Top down view of 3D fighter models
  • Laser and Missile effects
  • Ship explosion animations

 

Implementation Plan:

 

Ship and Station models for the game:

  • Most ship models will come from http://wcmdf.solsector.net/meshes.htm
  • Other models not found there will be produced by the team, or possibly outsourced to friends of the team working as volunteers

Code:

  • External libraries - sound, object loading, and possibly explosions.
  • Possibly Quadtree, Skybox, and 3D Vector (Vectorf) classes from the previous labs in the course.
  • The rest of the code will be original.

 

Schedule:

 

The Armada 2004 project was conceived on March 2, 2004.

  • 2 Mar: Birth
  • 6 Apr: Milestone 1. Playable game prototype, with multiplayer overhead strategy and dogfighting working. Checked in to CVS.
  • 20 Apr: Milestone 2. "Feature-complete" game, all major functionality in place. Checked in to CVS along with web page update.
  • 27 Apr: "Feature-Freeze". No more additional features will be added, just debugging from here on out.
  • TBA: Launch. Game demoed in class.