| Game Name: | Pow! |
| Development Team: |
Dan Wyand (danwyand@yahoo.com, wyand@andrew.cmu.edu) |
| Game Description: |
Users and AIs take control of a number of tanks scattered across a landscape,
taking turns launching various munitions at each other in an attempt to be the
last man standing. The landscape will be highly detailed and deformed by
weapons. Players will stockpile various weapons between rounds with cash won by
doing damage to other tanks. Shields, fuel for movement, and other utilities
will also be available to the player between rounds.
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| Game Features: |
- Multiple human and AI players will be able to play in turns at the same
screen or across a network.
- Weapons damage will significantly deform the terrain, creating persistent
hazards and providing various strategies for victory. Reroute rivers to
away enemy tanks, or fill a chasm with napalm to burn them out.
- A wide range of weapons, from the eternally available simple shell to
oozing napalm and multi-warhead nuclear weapons will be available to the
players -- if they play weel enough to afford them.
- Weapons must be aimed, angled, and powered carefully to get over mountains,
cut throuhg wind, and reach the desired target.
- Multiple tank avatars and taunts for players to choose from, giving the
warm feeling of rubbing it in after blasting the crap out of your friends
and loved ones.
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| Technical Features: |
- Deformable terrain. Static terrain will be limited to heightfield-type
data, but during a turn chasms may be blown into the sides of hills etc.
that will collapse, possibly trapping enemies inside and forcing them to
blast their way out.
- Collapsing dirt and dirt blasted out of the ground by weapons will scatter
in a pleasing manner, and not just fall straight down to maintain a 2.5D
landscape.
- Unique effects for each weapon, from the simple explosion of a tank round
to blinding, light-bending nuclear explosions to glowing, oozing napalm
that runs down hills and eventually cools into rock. Effects will be
implemented in OpenGL2.0 shader language, and a will require video drivers
which support it.
- Dynamic camera angles before a shot and clipped sections of the terrain to
prevent the view from being an obstacle to aiming.
- Dynamic camera angles during a shot to ensure a clear view of the
trajectory, and special angles and chase cameras to highlight excellent or
terrible shots.
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| Implementation Plan: |
Original source code and content:
- All code will be original for this project or original code from a
previous project this semester.
- All artificial intelligence routines will be originally written, but
may be based on existing strategies that are publically documented.
- Playing arenas will be automaticall generated by the game.
- Models, textures, and sound may be original or acquired from publically
available sources.
Textures and models may be acquired from as yet undetermined outside sources.
Web page structure largely stolen from class page.
Source and content previously developed:
- Vector, matrix, and geometry libraries developed for previous projects.
- Modifications of classes wrapping GL and GLUT functionality developed
for previous projects.
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| Schedule: |
Major Checkpoints:
- 22 Mar:
Begin design of data structures and algorithms to support the processing, rendering, and
collision detection of detailed deformable terrain.
- 29 Mar:
Algorithm and structure design should be complete, implementation should be begun by today
at the latest.
- 03 Apr:
Add basic tanks, weapons, interface, and camera control.
- 06 Apr:
Milestone 1: Playable game demo complete with simple tanks and weapons moving, firing, and
taking damage on fully functional (though possibly not with fully detailed dirt-collapse
dynamics) terrain.
- 11 Apr:
Finish any changes or refinements to physics models, except possibly custom physics unique
to certain weapons (napalm motion?) that will be developed along with weapon. Proceed to add
content and detail effects.
- 20 Apr:
Milestone 2: "Feature-complete" game, all major functionality and most content in place.
- 29 Apr: Feature freeze and polish.
- 05 May: Game complete.
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