ICS 699 – Sony PlayStation Game Programming Project
description
Transcript of ICS 699 – Sony PlayStation Game Programming Project
ICS 699 – Sony PlayStation Game Programming Project
-Matthew Sharritt
Overview
What is LEARNU? Goals of the Project How the Project Started Game Design Principles My Final Project Demonstration Conclusion
What is LEARNU
Lab of Edutainment Architectures for Revolutionary New Uses
– LEARNU is a lab of the University of Hawaii, Department of Information and Computer Sciences that explores the advancement of computer and information sciences and education in modern game console platforms.
Focus on ‘Edu-tainment’: Education & Entertainment Developer kits donated from SquareSoft- allowing us
to develop PlayStation Applications Project of Instructor David Nickles
How the Project Started
SquareSoft going out of business…www.squareusa.com– Donation of PSX development kits
PlayStation is a widely-used and widely-available platform, which is easy to use by people of all ages, and is great for multimedia applications
What the Lab Looks Like...
Game Design
Techniques were studied, from the book “Game Design, Theory and Practice” by Richard Rouse III
Game Design principles were studied, and applied to our projects
Some ‘Good’ Game Design Principles
Challenging Bragging Rights Good Graphics and Sounds Room for Fantasy / Immersion Consistency Accomplishable Tasks Humor Artificial Intelligence
A Challenging Game
Steady increase in difficulty First level easy, later levels hard Makes the game appealing to gamers of
different skill levels- beginners and experts
Bragging Rights
I got the highest score! Pac-Man style of getting to the highest level
possible and obtaining the highest score A good game will have people bragging to
their friends about the score they achieved
Good Graphics / Sounds
Many good games in the past, but they had much less powerful hardware
Resulted in simpler games than today Still fun to play, but can’t compare with the
latest games out today Good sounds and graphics add realism to
the game
Fantasy / Immersion
Good games absorb the person playing the game
Gamers can fantasize that they are in the world that the game presents
Gamer is unaware of the hours flying by
Consistency
Gamers expect a consistent interface and game play
Not following this convention will frustrate the game player
Switching the game ‘rules’ mid-stream will leave gamers complaining about the game programmers
Accomplishable Tasks
Tasks in the game should be something that is realistic for the gamer to accomplish
Gamer shouldn’t get hopelessly stuck Gamers expect to fail, otherwise it wouldn’t
be challenging
Humor
Fun games can be funny I tried to do this with adding a South Park
theme to my game Characters are funny- big head / little bodies,
similar to South Park theme You might recognize some of the
characters...
And Finally... AI
Artificial Intelligence- needs to match the complexity of the game
Often referred to as ‘Artificial Stupidity’ Can be simple, as long as the game play
doesn’t get too predictable
My Final Project
I worked on several projects over the year, and I will present my final project for this semester
Is a shooter-style game- objective is to kill your opponent before he kills you
There is a catch in the game- the orange figure in the snow-suit (Kenny) is your friend, and you cannot shoot him
My Final Project
Game allows you to duck behind a wall Several different levels, with different
enemies and settings Several difficulty levels Upon passing a difficulty level, you continue
by restarting on a higher difficulty level
My Final Project
Gun shot effects- such as seeing gun flashes, having different gun sounds for shooting or being shot at, and having a red flash on the screen when you are hit
Characters in the game follow a random AI, through a state machine
Game is played using the PlayStation light gun
Let’s See It!
I’ll switch to a demo of my game...
Conclusion
As a life-long gamer, I had a lot of fun studying what elements make a game fun
Creating games from scratch, and doing all of the design yourself is very rewarding
End product is a fun, playable game that can be shown to your friends
I would recommend participation in the PlayStation lab to anyone with an interest in gaming and software design
References
Rouse III, Richard. Game Design: Theory and Practice. Plano, TX: Wordware Publishing, 2001.