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Xeero - Worcester Polytechnic Institute

1. E Wave Barka ceos E Levels Sound Banks 0 i E Levels 0 Music i Defaut 0 264 600 100 PCM l ce poc 4B PiayeDigtze 1 146 600 PCM 100 1 146 600 100 PCM S san HRs ire 176 400 PCM 100 176 400 100 PCM Da ae Player 0 4 B onika 123 480 PCM 100 123 490 100 PCM am kpa Player 0 HUD 4B EnemyDespawn 264 600 PCM 100 264 600 100 PCM Doai od i jj Music 4B Enemy Spann 264 600 PCM 100 264 600 100 PCM Du en A ja i PartclaElfecte Prosa 95 256 PCM 100 95 256 100 PCM ey sl lt a D Preyer BB Soak 125244 PCM 100 125 244 100 PCM Cuatins i H Q Variables BWiordSpawm 560532 PCM 100 560932 100 PCM Bari fp 0 Gobal Bi SoiderLand 60544 PCM 100 60 544 100 PCM Ejwasido n Speed0fSound BB PeyerLaunch 529 200 PCM 100 529 200 100 PCM E Weapondick ame i 40 Cue Instance M Eoee 306 935 PCM 100 306 936 100 PCM Bnew deal O Distance 4B SpiderLens 98 784 PCM 100 98 724 100 PCM B ae Dena 0 O DopplerPtchScalar EnergyBulet 725 004 PCM 100 725 004 100 PCM H EnemySpown E 0 O NumCuelnstances 4B FiayerMatenaize 1 323 000 PCM 100 1 323 000 100 PCM enan 0 O ientationinge A PieyeGitcs 88 200 PCM 100 88 200 100 PCM E Ves aplicateGion ra ina 0 y E RPC Presets Wi FreDetonate 1 506 456 PCM 100 1 506 456 100 PCM F Spak Pat iceEeds 0 i Atenuation 4B UE Detonare 352 800 PCM 100 352 800 100 PCM 0 eal Cuefoicks Minogsm 954 324 PCM 100 954 324 100 PCM LA RPC Preset 4B rroaciCounter 95 256 PCM 100
2. 27 Apr 2015 lt http andrestraks github io BulletSharp gt Trine Nobilis 3 Jul 2009 Video game TypoCity Cyberspace Digital image DeviantArt Web Typodermic Fonts Quadrangle Web venomblade891 PCS X2 Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix English Patched Lingering Sentiment Battle Terra s Armor Online video clip YouTube Google 11 Sep 2011 Web WastedMeerkat Kingdom Hearts II Final Form Training Route Online video clip YouTube Google 25 Sep 2011 Web Yablonski Kirby Darksiders II Wii U Review Canadian Online Gamers Darksiders II Wii U Review Comments Canadian Online Gamers Network Web 27 Apr 2015 lt http canadianonlinegamers com review darksiders 11 w11 u review gt Appendix A Initial Game Metrics Debugger is a platformer and is focused around moving the character D around the world so every object in the game must be built around D s size D Unit Every object in the game is sized with the D Unit a size directly related to D s proportions The character is about 1 unit wide and deep and 2 units tall 2 D Units 1 D Unit Maps Maps in this game are broken up into nodes LevelNode that contain the various objects that D can interact with Each LevelNode is 3x3x4 D units four units tall and each node is flush with each of its adjacent nodes Node Positioning For map building there are specific areas of the node assigned to specific t
3. How many attempts did they make How would they rate the difficulty of the encounter recs Tel Ts Te 2 _ e om How would they rate the length of the encounter ms 2 fs ET lees Did they block or dodge during this encounter Did they counter any attacks Did they use the block object in combat during this encounter Blocking at the Gate How many attempts did they make before they reached the side with the turrets How many times did they fail to counter an attack by blocking too soon or too late and by being hit Did they attempt the combat encounter or skip it Did they partially attempt the fight before skipping it or did they die and then decide to skip it Linked Hit Switches After they have activated the spawners ask them to explain how these switches work Do they understand that the switches are linked Final Puzzle Did they try going left and up or right and across first Ask them why they chose the path they did How many times did they attempt to Digitize the Block at the Falling Platform Before leaving did they immediately try to get the block a second time If so ask them why How many deaths before they attempted to Digitize the Block below themselves at the second switch How many deaths before they successfully hit the switch Before leaving did they immediately try to get the Block a second time If so ask them why if they didn t at the previous block How would th
4. In the following section we will discuss the design process and implementation of sound effects in Xeero We will go into details on the different programs that Dan utilized how he found source materials and his editing process We will then discuss the steps he took in order to implement the sounds into the game The first thing Dan needed to start designing the audio was a list of the different sound effects that would be needed for the game During their first semester on the project Eric walked Dan through the game identifying everything that was needed audio cues including animations user interface cues ambient sounds and particle effects Dan added to the list all of the sound names see Appendix C This sound asset list would act as a vital reference for the remainder of the project helping Dan and Eric monitor each sound cue name whether the sound should loop if the file had been created and if the file had been inserted into the game engine For most of the sound cues Eric gave Dan a general idea of what type of sound he had in mind for different sources For other sounds it was up to Dan to come up with an original idea Dan kept a separate list of requests and suggestions from Eric for when he would design the sounds This reference guide would help Dan to focus in on a single sound effect Dan developed a color coding system for the list to rank the importance and priority of how quickly the sounds needed to be made Green cel
5. abilities Offensive Abilities Figure 24 Reaper attached to Xeero s back Figure 25 Xeero fighting a group of viruses The player has access to two attacks a primary and secondary but each attack can be altered to create a larger range of options The primary attack is a basic attack which is a combo of three swings the player can execute This deals a moderate amount of damage has a short range and 1s the most common method of dispatching enemies The player also has access to a secondary attack a telekinetic leap through which the player can quickly leap to enemies closing the gap between them and allowing the player to hit the enemies with their basic attacks The player can also use both the primary and secondary attack controls to apply different types of attacks By holding the primary attack button the player can use a block breaking attack a heavy attack that deals more damage and can stop enemies from blocking other attacks from the player However performing this attack ends their combo restricting the number of actions the Figure 26 Breaking the block of an enemy player can perform immediately after using the attack Similarly by holding the secondary attack button the player can perform a knockback attack that deals little damage but knocks enemies backward a far distance This can be used to break up large clumped groups give the player space to recover or knock ene
6. or to give the player advantages in combat In the game some switches act as pressure plates and can only be activated by the player standing on them In combat enemies can be stunned if the player jumps on their heads interrupting their actions and giving the player a moment to strike 3 5 3 Digitizing and Materializing Figure 22 Xeero digitizing a block to create a platform for himself Digitizing is the foundational affordance of Xeero the ability through which nearly every other one of his abilities 1s acquired He can digitize certain components of the world and store them in his gauntlet Some objects he can reuse to help him navigate the world while others give him new abilities The first type of object the player can digitize in the game are upgrade chips see section Digitizable Objects Upgrade Chips These are one time objects once they are digitized they are permanently stored in Xeero s gauntlet These give the player new abilities More commonly the player can digitize various objects located around the world These digitizable objects can be stored in the gauntlet and materialized back into the world when the player needs them Each object has different effects and the player can store up to two different objects in their gauntlet simultaneously The player can digitize block objects to help the player reach cover long gaps or reach high platforms They can also digitize bombs to destroy obstacles blocking
7. 8 14 8 00 AM Audo Work 46 days 10 13 14 8 00 AM 10 iv 12 12 tik tow 10 ton 12 Appendix D Sample Gantt Chart Sep 14 14 Sep 14 21 Sep 14 28 Sep 14 5 Oct 14 12 Oct 14 19 Oct 14 26 Oct 14 2 Nov 14 9 Now 14 16 Nov 14 23 Now 14 30 Now MTWTFSSMTWTFSSMTWTFSS MTWTFSSMTWTFESSMTWTFSSMTWTFSSMTWTFSSMTWTFSS5MTWTFSSMTWTFSSMTWTFS5 MTU D Anthony sessa j Amon sen Anthosy Sessa Dan Acito Appendix E Sample Meeting Minutes Xeero Status Meeting 4 October 6 2014 5 00 pm 6 00 pm Anthony Introduction Housekeeping Sound list Next week Eric Recap Fall Objectives System Updates Feature Updates Next week Dan Fall Objectives Audio Updates Music sound Demo Next week Additional Info The first potential public showing of the game is next week al the first WPI open house We plan on having a trailer lo show off and having at least two team members there to answer any questions the audience may pose Appendix F Festival Schedule Start End Date Date Events Conferences Festivals F Location National Harbor MAGFest hito far magiesL org T 112315 1126115 45 00 PAX a priority 1 IndieGade East httostwww indiecade comy NY NY 2013 15 24545 80 00 MoM 2 PAX South htlo south paxsite cor a 1123 15 12515 65 00 Tsteventin 2015 3 IGF Independent Games Festival httoi arna ig corr al eo J245 3 65 95 00 Nextyear 2016 4 PAX East hito east paxsile com Boston MA ABAS SBAS 75 00 ces A 5 FEST h
8. C gt C C Too hard How would you rate the duration of the levels within the game Mark only one oval Tooshot C C C C C Too long How would you rate the overall difficulty of the game Mark only one oval Tooeasy C C gt C C C Too hard Did you ever want to do something the game wouldn t let you
9. Electric Piano Y More Search Library Track Classic Electric Piano Bright Mk II Blackface right Suitcase Bnee M Output Figure 124 Screenshot of the Logic Pro X Interface It would often take several takes before Dan could get the notes to all sound similar Writing and performing the melody was always the most difficult part for Dan when it came to arranging the music The melodies did not have to be too complex as Dan did not want to music to take too much of the player s attention Dan would write the melodies to be simple enough to loop but interesting enough so that one could enjoy listening to 1t One of the biggest issues of using MIDI was that the notes performed would not match well to an actual music score Dan would often use the score editor function in Logic to tweak minor changes to the music This would include changing an individual note s pitch deleting a note or even duplicating a note The hassle with this process is that musically the notes would sometimes not play on the correct beat despite the note being correct on the music staff Generally all notes on the staff in the score editor would play around a Y of a measure late To compensate for this Dan would have to consider this delay any time he needed to make minor adjustments using the score editor While the process worked 1t was rather tedious and inefficient 20 0 Figure 125 Screenshot of the Score Editor function in Logic Pro
10. Management ida 125 ls ProdUCIONe te sc init 125 7 2 Schedulina Team Meetings sisi is 125 o A A chetuan predate cay gna E ea enhancement 125 A e ct cl 126 Tee A face chi dates Gad bl teh a a ecurieiatbasies 126 Pies NCSU AUIS crests cuccssaranssicai ia wisc namie sateua wad aa a daauans Tama ane moa an ewes eee eemaS 126 TAs AVIS SUN iste reat OO O 127 Te LN ANOS apse ea atte ate aga NES 127 Ge Fr OSUMONCIG srr Granecacavinny ajou tauted incase o 129 Oils What Went RIO EA Aa 129 Salle ENCANTO tes ta 129 SEA WAM AclO adela 130 Seles ANNON SES rasa daa 130 di2s WWINabwWent WWA a 131 aak A a O Gemeteatteds 131 Saa Dan Aci tra ira tard 131 32 AMNON SS da o il 132 8 3 What we would do differently ccooocococncocnococnccccnoncncnnnconcnonanononnnnnrnnnnnonanennnnos 133 831 ENCANTO eaten 133 9392 Dance raid 133 833 ANNON SES A AA 134 JS O ee en Ree eee ree ee 135 WOKS OIE sa sia 136 Appendix A Initial Game Met uconinaiidrada aa taaa 139 DRL y PA PP OO A 139 A opie a oo nade ene cuaamdegaet endorde wiend ova Naeitunuaens Aes Yeanae doa aeterreentendametamds 139 NoJde POSIMONIM Ossa judia 139 WIOVEMENUIVICTIICS iaa dl o bo 140 Map SOON Susana tr bo 140 Appendix B Xeero Promotional Poster occooccconcconcconcconcconccnncnononononononanonanonanenanenones 141 Appendix G Sound sta ea tena ae lanai a o oo ec ia 142 Appendix D Sample Gantt Chaise E E GERR 145 Appendix E Sample Meeting Minute
11. Reaper also allows the player to block attacks While blocking all damage the player takes is dramatically reduced However the player is only able to block attacks from the front The player can use the block to mitigate a barrage of damage coming at them or if they are willing to take a risk they can use block to deal damage to enemies By initiating a block at the right moment Figure 27 Blocking with Reaper before an attack hits the player is able to counter the attack reflecting projectiles and stunning attackers while dealing damage Additionally the player can dodge Dodging quickly moves the player in one direction and makes them temporarily immune from taking damage The player can dodge incoming strikes quickly engage or disengage from a group or quickly move to flank an enemy Combat and Intentions Through the dedicated attack actions platforming mechanics and puzzle solving tools the player has access a breadth of intentions they can have in combat In combat encounters the player can rely solely on the basic attack to aggressively clear out groups of enemies use digitizable block objects to smash groups of enemies to quickly eliminate them or play defensively relying on the mobility afforded by dodging and the countering afforded by blocking to let enemies effectively eliminate themselves 3 6 Controls Breadth of intention was also considered when developing the controls for Xeero Emphasis w
12. X Once the main melody was in place Dan would work on the bridge or B section Generally this section had its own unique melody and would often remove some of the other voices from the previous verse of the music Typically there would be no percussion and the music would be somewhat soft Dan s motivation was to use this bridge as build up to the next section which would be a variation of the main melody The next verse would sound very similar to the first Typically Dan would copy the music data to the new measure and logic and then play around with the notes to add some variation It could be something simple such as adding or removing a few notes or changing the octave that the music was playing in The overall structure and chord progressions would stay the same The idea was not to change too much but alter the melody slightly to keep the music interesting Once the basic structure of a piece was set Dan would work on adding additional textures and layers These could include occasional ambient noise various chords or just interesting instrumentation that added more depth to the music The additional textures helped to round out the sound so that the music was much fuller The ambient sound also would fit well with the in game environment since the setting is often mysterious and ominous The last step of the music arranging was to go through the mastering process This would entail making sure each of the track lay
13. a o wna Figure 103 The pose and key frames used in the idle animation for Xeero Animations are usually tested in game one at a time as they are completed The model and its animations are exported imported into Xeero s engine and tested 4 7 3 Debris Model Some objects in Xeero are destructible and after they are destroyed they crumble into rubble Each piece of rubble is created as a separate model and each piece is loaded into the game to replace the destroyed object Each debris model is created from another finished model The model is Figure 104 A pile of rubble a block left behind divided along where the breaks occur and new faces and texturing seams are added to fill the volume of the object Each debris piece is UV unwrapped and textured to match the original texture of the object Then each piece is exported and loaded into the engine 4 8 Style 2D Figure 105 The individual pieces of block o f debris Two dimensional art plays a supplementary role in Xeero reserved mostly for icons GUI elements and particles Nevertheless 2D art follows the themes of stylized art used for 3D models Building the aesthetic for 2D art in the game was simple after the 3D style was cemented helped by the fact that the 3D art style was originally conceived to mimic 2D art Most 2D elements used vibrant solid colors with thick black borders Figure 106 A 2D icon and its 3D counterpart Two dime
14. be tiled and dynamically processed Figure 108 Effects in Xeero requiring special tile able textures For both of these textures Eric created a program to generate procedural textures using different equations This program creates tile able textures using either the Cell Cell Clouds Leaves Points Per Row 16 Distance Scale changing the resolution density or other properties of the generated 1 jji nana image Different textures generated by the program are below Clouds or Leaves equations Each equation can be tweaked Filename Cell png Texture Size 1024 Generate Figure 109 The interface of the procedural texture generator 4 9 Environment Figure 110 Some sample textures generated by the procedural texture generator Inspiration for the general tone of the world of Xeero was drawn from several independent artists among them Joou Chiyanmon Justice Von Brandt Figure 111 Cyberspace by TypoCity and TypoCity from DeviantArt These artists had created cyberspace themed art that inspired the use of blacks with splashes of vibrant color for backgrounds in Xeero Cyberspace is often depicted as a void with little populating the space except objects of interest These inspirations are clear in the levels and skyboxes used in Xeero As mentioned in the Level Editor section levels are built modularly out of specific gameplay altering modules allowing fo
15. blend and transition into any other arbitrary number of animations 4 7 Process 3D The following section will describe the process and software Eric used to create some of the 3D assets used in Xeero 4 7 1 Software Used For the creation of 3D assets Eric used Adobe Photoshop Blender and ZBrush Adobe Photoshop photo and image editing software was used for building modeling sheets during conceptualization and for building textures for models Blender is a full 3D pipeline application with features from the initial stages of modeling and sculpting to skinning and animation The 3D application was used in modeling texturing rigging skinning and animating models ZBrush a digital sculpting tool was used to sculpt some characters 4 7 2 Characters and Props Most characters and props created for the game follow a similar process conceptualization and sketching modeling sculpting texturing rigging and skinning and animation finalizing each step before moving onto the next Concept and Sketches First the concept for the object or character 1s created For characters this usually involves defining unique characteristics and features for the character and firming the design through several rough sketches In this step most of the details for the character like clothes and ornaments are represented on paper Next the proportions for the character are precisely defined Eric creates Figure 92 An early
16. control instructions in succession they gave the players more text than they were willing to read Additionally the text of tutorial messages was defined within the level editor making all of the text fixed within the level However as discussed in the Controls section all of the mapped buttons could be remapped by the player Further the game allows the player to use either the mouse and keyboard or a gamepad when playing on the PC Taking all of these factors into account created awkward tutorial messages such as Press A or space left control to jump these controls can be remapped in the options menu Hold Figure 73 A tutorial equation as shown to the player Visual tutorials sought to remedy these issues At certain sections of the game a tutorial like the one picture above would appear near the bottom of the screen These pictorially depicted controls for the player to use to aid the player quickly learning new information The player would see a large image for a button and a symbol and would be encouraged to try the button and experiment Figure 74 A tutorial equation for mouse keyboard and gamepad controls Additionally the visual tutorial system recognizes the possible control configurations the player can use Each button on the gamepad keyboard and mouse has an icon and the equation can show whichever button is mapped to that control The tutorials also can detect which hardware the player 1s
17. ee ad Levels gt gt gt gt gt gt eee ee _1G_Primary Player eaperf inisher_16_Primary aG Primary PlayerReapert_2G_Secomdary Playerteaperfinisher_1A_Primary PlayerBugCrush Pluyer eaperl_1G Primary Playerfeaperl_1A4_ Primary PlayerResper2_1A_Primary Payer Bug Crush Attack War Spin Launch PPP REE ee ee ee PlayerReaperFintsher_2G_Primary PlayerReaper2_2G Secondary PluyerkeaperFinisher 2G _ PlayerReaper _2G_ Primary Sez ZzZE PPP E eee ad u Secondary Playertesper 2_2A_ Primary 2A PioyerReaperFinishor_2A_Seconcary PlayerReaperFinisher_2A_Primary PlayerReaper2_2A_ Secondary Playerteapert_2A_ Primary Player Respet rr ete gt gt gt Zzez FF fetes rr tr gt ZZ gt y gt gt gt eee rr rr gt rr gt rrror gt gt gt Te de ee ee e e de e de HHHHH Trrrrr gt rr gt gt y 2E22ZZZ gt EZ gt gt gt gt Y Y e e y gt gt eee dl ee ee da e Upgrade fectligttBeamEnd Acquired Upgrade Effect Digit Steam Upgradef fectDigitteam UpgradeChipOigrize UpgradeChipMaterialze Upgradet iii FF zi FE fi EE Acquired Uograde Lit Bean Middle Upgradetfectligttbeam Acquired Upgrade Light Beam Start Acquired Upgrade Light Beam End i 3 i Y Levels echlines IrfoPageCutscereimage IrfoPageLutscenedes Info Pages Info Page Cutscene
18. enough Dan could go by the list of suggestions that Eric had provided for him Since the list had some generic directions on them Dan could just find a suitable source file and tweak it to Eric s specifications In terms of plug ins the pitch modifiers often provided the most interesting results By shifting the octaves up and down it would often distort the source sounds well enough so they would fit with the theme of the game Reaper also has a tool that raises the playback speed of the sound but does not alter the pitch This compression allowed for Dan to easily shorten sound cues that could fit in time to the different animations in the game A _ _ __ __ _ 1 B FX Track 1 ObjectDigitizeNew FX Edit Options JL2 n2ar J U y E Vi Enabled T Solo active shifter Shift ful range m hen Tra Shit semitones Shit octaves p Foant cht gul mn Fomart sh r cd os AA E Volume 0 0 i 00 E Add shifter Delete shifter Reset al E Autocomect master playrate changes Pitch Shit Mode gorithm Project Defeu lt _Add_ Remove EY V ereo Note formant adjustment not supported with all modes 0 0 0 0 CPU 0 0 sols Figure 120 Screenshot of Reaper using the Pitch modifier plug in and volume modulation Any sounds that had extraneous noise or frequencies could be altered using equalization Using this process Dan could make 1t so only specif
19. image Control Prompt Comtrol Prompt Pop Control Prompt Techlines HEE gt gt gt gt gt gt y w v v ImpactBlcciEroien IrapactBioct Block Soken Impact Block impact Counter impact Evace Impact Digitizable Objects a DOlmpact Digitizable Object Purge Indicator DOP urgeindicater Digitizable Object Purge DOPurge RocketDigitiza RocketMatenalize Magnet Digitice MagnetMaterialize GravkyfFieldligitze GravkyFieldMaterialzo Digitize Moving Block MovingBlockDigrtizo Materialize Moving Block MovingBlockMateriaiize Magnet Platform Digitize Magnet Platform MagnetPiatformDigitize Materialize Magnes Platform MagnetPiatformMaterialize Gravity Platform Digitize Gravity Platform GravityPlatformDigitize Materialize Gravity Platform GravityPlatformMateriabze Missile Digtize Missile MissdeDigitize Matorializo Missilo MessdoMatonaloo Heat Seeking Bomb Digitizo Heat Sealing Bomb HeatBombDigitize Materialize Heat Seaking Bomb HeatBombMaterialize Gravity Bomb Digitize Gravity Bomb GraviyBombDigtize Materialize Gravity Bomb GraviyBombMaterialize Moving Magnet Digtize Moving Magnet Moving agreto ge Materialize Moving Magnet MovingMagretMaterialize Moving Gravity Field Digttize Moving Gravity Field Materialize Moving Gravity Field MovingGravityFieldMaterialize Gravity Pube Digitize Gravity Pulte GravityPulseDigitizo Materialize Gravity Pulse GravityPulseMateriaize Big Archive Bounce B
20. like Nobilis Trine for combining different types of play experience Games in the Trine series are action puzzle platformers in which the player has control over three different characters each character typifying one of those genres 1 e there is a character designed for combat one for solving puzzles and one for platforming The player is able to switch between the characters at will for whichever task 1s required of them Then short sections of each level are designed to either be devoted to one type of action or another or require a combination of characters Additionally characters are not solely devoted to one style of play e g the puzzle solving and platforming characters can also be used in combat and the platforming and combat characters can also solve puzzles In much the same way Xeero seeks to unite different and sometimes contradictory aspects into a cohesive whole 3 3 Story The development of the story for Xeero occurred late in the project the main character world and visual style had already been developed before the story was considered Gameplay and visual style had been given precedence in development and the purpose of the game was to deliver a gameplay driven experience to the player Despite this story for this game was considered an essential component to providing a full experience for the player Thus a story was constructed to fit within the visual themes presented and to give context to the enviro
21. mechanics for the game finalized by the writing of this document The section will describe some of the game objects implemented for Xeero as well as the design decisions and motivations for specific objects 3 1 Game Overview Xeero is a 3D third person action puzzle platformer in which the player controls an avatar Xeero to progress through levels The player has a small set of actions the player can perform running jumping attacking dodging and they must use all of these actions to solve puzzles reach platforms and defeat enemies The game is designed for Windows with gamepad support Through the underlying architecture of the game it can be easily ported to the Xbox 360 and releases for Linux Mac PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One are possible with relatively few changes to the codebase 3 2 Inspirations Xeero draws from different genres action platformers and puzzle and draws specific inspirations from games within each genre The game seeks to distill the essence from each genre and unite their mechanics in such a way that a single mechanic doesn t apply to just a single section of Xeero but uses its properties to apply it to the entirety of the game s action puzzle platforming spectrum Figure 10 Combat from Darksiders Yablonski and Dust An Elysian Tail Chambers The game drew inspiration from action games like Microsoft Studio s Dust An Elysian Tail Nordic Games Darksiders Nintendo
22. of April 1 2014 Microsoft officially discontinued the platform Hruska While the framework can still be used develop games for Windows using DirectX 9 XNA cannot specifically target later generations of Windows products However the library MonoGame originally created by Jos Antonio Leal de Farias was developed as an open source implementation of the XNA framework Stolpe As of March 2015 MonoGame extends the platforms supported by XNA including Windows 8 1 Mac OS Linux 10S Android Windows Phone 8 and Ouya as well as major consoles like Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4 Jackson MonoGame and XNA framework share a nearly identical API designed to allow developers to easily port XNA games into MonoGame The game is designed for Windows with gamepad support Through the underlying architecture of the game it can be easily ported to the Xbox 360 and releases for Linux Mac PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One are possible with relatively few changes to the codebase Xeero is designed to be released initially for Windows PCs but will switch to MonoGame to target multiple platforms 6 2 Building the Engine Microsoft XNA is a framework that serves as an analog to their DirectX API and contains functionality to render 2D and 3D graphics play audio and load game assets XNA is designed to be used with the Microsoft NET language C Many of the features discussed in this section use the C implementation of object ori
23. purpose of a game mechanic e Did the puzzle or combat section seem too long too short too hard or too easy Post Play Survey questions Likert scaled answers 6 degrees 1 Combat How often did you find yourself retrying combat encounters How often did you complete combat encounters on the first try 2 Puzzle solving Are objectives within levels clear to you 3 Instruction Clarity How clear were instructions tutorial messages a Agree disagree Tutorial messages were helpful Instructions were clear 4 Level Duration How would you rate the duration of the level Open questions What is your favorite genre of games How would you describe the game to someone who has never played before Platforming Did you find yourself retrying to jump too often Puzzle Solving Did you find yourself getting stuck anywhere et Combat How did you find the length of individual encounters Any particular ones that felt too long or short Instruction Clarity Any instructions you didn t understand Instruction Clarity Can you describe how mechanics work after you were presented with the instructions Did you want to do something the game wouldn t let you Appendix I Xeero Test Protocol 2 In Game Survey Xeero Playtest e Encourage the players to talk out loud What are they trying to do What are their impressions Why are they making the decisions they re making e The answer to some of these questions m
24. ready to actually begin the editing process The sound editing program that Dan had the most experience with was Pro Tools but having access to this program was out of his budget During this time Dan was acting as teaching assistant to Keith Zizza a Professor of Practice for game audio in the IMGD department Zizza was having his students utilize Reaper a digital audio workstation DAW released by Cockos The advantages of using Reaper in the classroom setting was that 1t was free to download and had a simple user interface Students could download the DAW on their home machine and could continue to easily work on assignments both on and off campus Zizza recommended to Dan that he should take the time to learn Reaper as it not only worked very similarly to Pro Tools but also fit well into Dan s budget Dan downloaded the software onto his home machine and began to familiarize himself with the interface as well as take in some tips from the online user manual Francis 2014 Just as Zizza had stated there were many similarities between Reaper and Pro Tools This allowed for many of Dan s editing skills to be transferred over to this new program ERA ATL ALL ad n mr Af Al Ed Ter iar bee E Epa cra Foo MEE dio chee E fe a si B 4 ti E j CE ee g a ee ee PEA Figure 119 Screenshot of the main Reaper interface The initial goal for Dan was to work through the sound asset list as quickly as p
25. s Bayonetta and Sony s God of War These 3D games offer fast reflex heavy combat encounters They usually pit a single character controlled by the player against multiple enemies of varying types Different enemies require different strategies many encounters can require multiple attempts before the player 1s able to complete them or new enemies may require the player to change their strategy The examples mentioned are exclusively in third person perspective lending to flashy vicious combat animations which can be satisfying to a player to achieve with a few button presses These games focus heavily on combos where the player can chain different types of attacks together by pressing different buttons in different order or by holding certain buttons during the attack animations Some games like those mentioned above also offer minimal platforming usually giving the player a basic jumping or climbing controls and allow the player to perform simple platforming tasks to break up successive combat encounters j i as Me d a a COMMAND Attack 2 a 4 Figure 11 Combat from Kingdom Hearts II venomblade891 In a similar vein Kingdom Hearts series published by Square Enix heavily influenced the design of combat This game combines the combat of action games with the character progression of role playing games This game also demonstrates one of the moments of gameplay Xeero attempts to encapsulate unlocki
26. sketch of Xeero a modeling sheet that will be used to model the character Usually in this step paper sketches are scanned and a modeling sheet is created in Adobe Photoshop Debugger upe 2 15 13 Right Figure 93 The modeling sheet used for Xeero Modeling sheets usually contain several views of the character front profile or back view and any additional equipment the character may use like a weapon Debugger Soldier Virus 1 3 15 RH E oe 7 Ae o AR W Figure 94 The modeling sheet used for the soldier virus gt gt IT G For most props the necessary functionality has already been defined in the terms of gameplay and mechanics and this step involved giving form to the function Most props in Xeero are based on real computer hardware redesigned for Xeero For those props sketches or modeling sheets aren t usually created and reference images are gathered instead Modeling After modeling sheets have been created for characters these are imported into Blender mapping each view in the modeling sheet to the corresponding view in Blender so the proportions of the model can be easily compared to the modeling sheet and adjusted Here the general proportions for the model are created through box and extrusion modeling Figure 95 Modeling Xeero from the modeling sheet Most props use mostly hard surfaces using more precise angles and lengths so their geometry is entirely
27. they choose to dispatch enemies and the player is allowed to explore different play styles to find what is most satisfying for them The game also drew inspiration from puzzle games like Valve Corporation s Portal on how to construct interesting puzzles and how to teach players to play the game while the player is playing the game The Portal series a first person puzzle solving game with no combat has a very minimal set of actions the player can perform the controls of the game essentially contain three buttons but the game incrementally adds new objects in the world on which the player can use their actions and each object adds a new level of complexity to the mechanics to which the player already has access Each puzzle of the game is itself a tutorial for future puzzles in the game and the game is steadily able to introduce higher complexity to the player Figure 13 An example of the complexity of puzzles in Portal Valve Corporation In these games simple objects have a variety of uses and this game typifies the other moment of gameplay Xeero attempts to create the interplay of game mechanics The player can solve a complex puzzle consisting of several parts by using their limited actions and leveraging the behaviors of various objects in the world Puzzle games like Portal and action games like Darksiders have vastly different mechanics gameplay and target audience So the design of Xeero drew inspiration from games
28. to feel the relative weight of adding one BitBuck ten or a thousand When the player purchases an Upgrade Chip from a Vending Machine the money ticks down with a similar animation as the Xeero feeds money into the machine Figure 64 Losing money 3 8 7 Enemy Health Bars Enemy health bars show the current health of enemies the player is fighting similar to the player health bar The bar appears over the head of the enemy but only when the enemy is close to the player and is taking damage 3 9 Level Editor Figure 65 A health bar over The following section describes the level editor created for the head of an enemy Xeero motivations and design decisions behind its construction and how it is used to construct levels in the game 3 9 1 Motivations Early in development a flexible format was created to allow levels to be developed programmatically Originally the intention was to allow levels to be mocked up on paper before being entered into a text file to be read by the game However levels quickly grew in complexity requiring hours of manual entry to create Because the game had to be loaded before the results of the entry could be viewed much of the design process to create a level matching a drawn mockup involved writing to a file opening the game closing the game tweaking the level file and opening the game again Additionally when the levels were play tested and tweaks needed to be made the
29. using to play the game mouse keyboard or gamepad and will show the appropriate buttons to the player Through pictorial display and dynamic button icons visual tutorial equations reduce the verbosity and inaccuracy of early tutorial messages 3 10 2 Info Pages While visual tutorials are designed to teach the player about controls used in the game Info Pages are designed to teach the player about specific objects they can encounter in levels Some information about objects is critical to the player s understanding of the mechanics of the game When this information was displayed in a tutorial message the player could ignore or unintentionally miss the information presented to them Figure 75 An info page for a breakpoint The info pages are full screen animations that display the name of the object a large icon of the object and a brief description While the info page is running the game underneath is paused and the player must press a button to acknowledge the info page to dismiss it This large animation immediately captures the eye of the player and while it can t force the player to read anything it at least ensures that the player is aware that there 1s information for them to learn When a player approaches an important object in a level for the first time the info page is triggered after the player gets within a certain distance Info pages can also be used for player upgrades When the player gains a ne
30. weight paints determines how much influence any bone has on a single vertex the models to correct errors in the heat mapping and to ensure that joints and folds in the mesh are correctly deforming Figure 102 Weight painting bones for the spider virus After testing tweaking and weight painting the model is ready for animation Animation Usually after a model has been skinned Eric first creates poses that serve as the basis for most of the animations Usually at least an idle pose is created and stored for the character When creating a new animation usually the idle pose is used for the first frame and the character transitions into the major poses from them Next Eric uses Blender s tools to create animations for the model In Blender specific animations are broken into actions each action containing the key frames for the animation Eric creates animations for a model first by defining the key frames for the major poses of the action and timing out each pose over approximately how much time the animation should take Some animations are precisely defined in their timing like jumping and landing animations for enemies which follow a template while others allow for more flexibility After major motions are defined windup and recoil frames are added and frames are adjusted to account for overlapping action a le 15 B u le la ta la le a ou ta a le
31. would prioritize and load the more important assets first so the model for a critical gameplay object would be loaded before an asset for a supplementary visual effect This system allowed for any number of assets to be loaded before the game starts and the remainder of the assets are only loaded as they are needed Asset loading can also be modified by the programmer to load only a partial list of assets during loading screens to help reduce loading times 6 2 4 Animation Controllers As mentioned in the Animation section of Visual Art Style 3D chapter character animations needed to smoothly transition from one to another to facilitate the player quickly performing a series of actions in succession To both reduce the number of transitional animation that would be required to make and allow animations to be interrupted an animation blending system was developed The animation controller is a behavior the programmer can hook into a WorldObject This system gives the programmer flexibility over which animations are played for a single animated model A single animation is considered a blend state for the model The model can play a single blend state but before the animation 1s completed a new animation can start This animation is allowed to blend together to transition from fully using the old animation to fully using the new animation over time This system allows blend states to transition from one to another bu
32. 95 256 100 PCM BR rpectEvede 142884 PCM 100 142 884 100 PCM a is i rosettlock 144643 PCM 100 144648 100 PCM Ow 4B Screennch 88200 PCM 100 88 200 100 PCM WM bugle 165 816 PCM 100 165 816 100 PCM General P Heatran 400 428 PCM 100 400 428 100 PCM mame GB HeathPicx Up 160 524 PCM 100 160 524 100 PCM BEneczySeep mia PEM 100 2342 00M JE goma 144 648 PCM 100 144 648 100 POM SpiderSwipe 93492 PCM 100 93 492 100 PCM E include Cue Names E EneyShine 4236 PM 100 42 396 100 PCM ae 4B EnemyDodge 144 648 PCM 100 144 648 100 PCM sec 4B tr bucksBounce 301 648 PCM 100 301 644 100 PCM JE 4B bt BucksPickLp 264 600 PCM 100 264 600 100 PCM a AB GircieSwetch 136 620 PCM 100 136 620 100 PCM froox Levels xsb TE A ComuptedOdjectGitch 79 380 PCM 100 79 380 100 PCM AAAA M rioPageDese 34 752 PCM 100 31 782 100 PCM WiniLevela zs El Land 132 300 PCM 100 132 300 100 PCM BB Pixeectfactstenst RRR POM 100 AR ARA MIL PCM Figure 122 Screenshot of the XACT interface showing the collection of wav files and the list of sound cues Overall the user interface was fairly simple to use All Dan had to do was insert the sound files into the engine and then link them to sound cue names that Eric s code could recognize Once the sounds were in the engine Dan could manipulate different XACT variables to further alter the sounds For example footstep sounds could have their volume and pitch randomized so that a slightly altered sound would be played each time
33. HE PEENE bevels Levels gt e z _ _ Ph hrs e r EE EYP EEE EE ZEEE E a XX gt gt gt 5 gt gt gt Pee ee E TZ TZ zz Z ZZ Zz z Z gt gt PEZ os z Zzz z zZz ZZ Z ZZ ZZZ Zem eere ete rtetzezteeeeteteerere Zr Ee i ri de le le de de de le le E gt r ES E ES de de te de le le de le le e de le le le le e e e e e ERP Pee EEE EEE EE EE EE EE RFP FP ee Ee MPO My a wo i hal a al w tal tal hal hal hal tal hr lr da lr a la da i mA PEPE PEPE ARPA TAPA hal hal dal had dad dal dal dal dal dal dl dal da da dar da da da da da PEPE EF i E w EHP ah m f Eig Hd TH anig UH Air Hugh A eia ck ith Trl esten ries SAM rec aieswichv Timed Switches Timed Switch Tick Button tn TN parce Spider Virus Leaping Soldier Virus Landing Soldier Virus Leaping Laver Turret Clatter Callisioe Vending Machang Bump Vending Machine Dispense Montes Tick Er ChaCha Partidos and Efects Laser Tunet Hi Switch His Swatch Button Texhered Hit Switch Gate Door Bounce DO Shot Fade Lip Ember Barst Firewall Firre Canon Fire 1 Rit Slicers A E E 49 agaaa Name Duration Start Open Mouse 1 1 day 10 13 14 6 00 AM Open Mouse 2 0 875 days 11 11 14 9 00 AM System implmersabos 71 days 9 5 14 8 00 AM Feature impimentation 71 days 9 8 14 8 00 AM OGO Test Day 0 5 days 11 4 14 1 00 PM Demo Mave 21 days 9 8 14 8 00 AM Open Mouse Trader 5 days 10 7 14 8 00 AM Demo Sounds Complete 21 days 9
34. MDO Mete costra 56 296G BIIBUCKS DIS DIA ci ei 57 29 A SA O A a aT 58 dd eve Edi sra os 58 Seale WMOUVATOMS tania 58 AA e A a O til 59 29 A O 60 O94 MOCOS a Gta al ae 61 3 9 5 Leve ona sii ia 63 3 10 Tomasa ains ia 63 3 10 1 TUtOnalEqualON Scania lia 64 3 10 2 no E UI eeackinehiunnetetved ptaboreiebractasmealieachaabiad 66 3 10 3 Revamped toral TOM id cd 67 3 10 4 LO AGING ED O erreme in E Sunbsa tirade eee ietanetatees 68 STMT IAN gt eget teen ee AO 70 A ao LOM oats ices escola te ae ea a cea ae nee Ste ca 70 reo AY CoD ee ENT EAE ST See OO OE eee Te te ey Oe eee e mines a nlshen Odd Snes teeta asta 74 Act A A 74 A o 76 AG ANIMA ON io aora ui iaa 77 Ae Process a O a ai ias 79 ATM SOR Wane WSCC is tddi 79 Aes Characters ail FOS sec nt eerie o ee ee ee nei 79 Ars ICDS Me ed as 87 A 87 A ENVrONMON es old one 90 A e O o PO oheat seeded a a a nen 92 4 11 FFOMIOUOMAlPARIWONK sintio 94 AUGO eee Geodata Giana dee stele enh Gai Gea erie Geer ele eee lial elena 95 Bali SOUNA EMO Sua eee 95 92a MUSIC a 104 Technical Dev OPM airis ia 113 6 1 Framework and Plato MS iria ai 113 ies BUAN MN ENdIMCisnaiaia E sa 114 A a O date ciee te enaeseen nse eae eset 114 6 22 Came Wonder 117 62 3 ContentiWManad eMe lisis da id eel o 119 6 2 4 Animation COntrollers atestado een con diaeo caer ders 120 6 25 Lua oc ais 122 6020 Ray RECON id a io cantina Gee 122 6 2k Level Edi cara o 123 Project
35. Made in Mass party at the Microsoft NERD center Gamers got a chance to try out the first couple of levels as well as provide suggestions and feedback on what they saw Eric Dan and Anthony were on hand at both events to help facilitate the play sessions Future festivals that the team plans on attending include E3 Boston FIG IndieCade and the RPI Game Fest see Appendix F for a larger list 7 4 Playtesting As with any piece of software adequate testing 1s required in order to ensure the game works properly and that it is enjoyable to players Anthony was responsible for coordinating and setting up playtesting sessions for Xeero Playtesting in Xeero unfolded in two iterations First the tutorial level was demoed to a class of 25 game design students These students played the tutorial then answered a brief post play survey Eric created see Appendix G Then as an assignment for a game production class in which Dan Eric and Anthony were enrolled a more formal testing protocol was developed for the game see Appendix H This protocol involved running both an in game and a post play survey While testers played the game a test proctor would observe the session and ask players questions from the in game survey see Appendix I Then after the tester completed the suite of levels they would fill out a post play survey see Appendix J With the help of playtesters various bugs and glitches were discovered in the levels that had bee
36. The initial choice of framework for the game and its engine Microsoft XNA played to the disadvantage of the project By the start of the project s creation Microsoft had announced that they would discontinue the framework and the framework was officially dropped while the Master s Project was in progress Eric had researched replacement technology focusing on MonoGame to allow the game to reach multiple platforms but even the two frameworks sharing a nearly identical will incur a high time cost to switch between them Through Eric s preliminary tests the framework MonoGame misses some features vital to the performance of the game like hardware instancing while other large complex parts of engine like the shaders used to create the game s aesthetic would need to be rewritten 3 2 2 Dan Acito The biggest mistake that Dan made throughout the development process was not being fully organized from the beginning By not following a strict naming convention with his wav files and not categorizing the sound bank 1t became difficult to keep track of information While this issue was remedied before too much progress had been made 1t still ended up costing Dan valuable time by having to go through and rename all of the sound files For the music Dan was severely limited by his hardware choices Even though the Rock Band keyboard functioned well at what it was needed to do it fell far behind in terms of what a professional qualit
37. Upgrade Chip by using the menu marked Parameter Menu Chunks of the level can be selected and moved by clicking and dragging on either a single object or on a selected group of objects by dragging on empty space in the main area marked Main Area The upper menu marked Top Bar allows the designer to copy and paste sections of the level undo and redo actions and save and open different levels The upper menu also allows the designer to play the level as it is being constructed allowing for rapid testing and refinement The levels created with the level editor can be saved to and loaded from human and machine readable XML 3 9 3 Linking Figure 67 Linking a switch to a gate Some objects can define relationships with other objects in the game Such links are defined by right clicking and dragging between two compatible objects In Xeero most link relationships are generalized into switches and receivers Any switch object like Buttons Hit Switches and even objects like Turrets can be linked to any receiver object like Gates or any hazard that can be enabled or disabled allowing the switch to activate or deactivate the receiver in the level once the switch has been activated 3 9 4 Mockup Objects Figure 68 The mockup objects in different colors Additionally the editor gives the designer access to mockup objects blank primitives of different shapes such as boxes spheres and cap
38. Xeero A 3D Action Puzzle Platforming Game by Eric Anumba Daniel Acito and Anthony Sessa A Project Report submitted to the faculty of WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Interactive Media and Game Development 29 April 2015 Approved Brian Moriarty Project Chair Britton Snyder Keith Zizza Abstract This report discusses the design and development of Xeero a 3D action puzzle platforming game constructed from our own custom engine original art and sound assets Despite a small development team we strove to create a highly polished and marketable interactive experience We explain the methodology employed results gained and challenges faced by each member of the team in pursuit of this goal Acknowledgements We owe significant thanks to a myriad of contributors who without their support the completion of this project would not be possible Thanks to our thesis advisor Brian Moriarty who provided us with much invaluable insight with his experience in the video game industry and encouraged us throughout the entire development process Thanks to Britt Snyder and Keith Zizza who served on our thesis committee Additionally Zizza was a valuable resource regarding audio development we are especially thankful for him loaning Dan Acito some of the hardware he needed for creating the music as well as providing guidance throughout the entire music
39. act like treasure chests the player can open are based on icons traditionally used to represent databases structures containing organized data Representing objects using actual hardware or iconography was a strategy designed to make it easier for players to determine what game objects would do With other objects the intention was to use the computer motif to create a digital redesign of familiar items The portal used to transport the player to the boss fight pictured right is based on other large gateways or portals seen in fantasy settings but it has designed with PCI E connectors pipes and the types of hard edges and angular shapes used with digitizable objects Similarly Bit Slicers a platforming obstacle for the player are based on familiar bladed traps Figure 118 The boss door a digital redesign of a large portal 4 11 Promotional Artwork While Eric created the visual art used within the game the team collaborated and sourced help from another student to create promotional artwork for Xeero Within the team Anthony created a series of trailers for the game see Production Management Trailer Externally Kedong Ma an IMGD art student was contacted to create promotional artwork for Xeero Ma collaborated with the team sharing game assets and iterations on artwork Over the course of seven weeks Ma created an animated 3D logo and poster for the game see Appendix B 5 Audio 5 1 Sound Effects
40. acted as the technical developer designer and visual artist He produced the game binaries designed the mechanics and levels and created the 2D and 3D art assets Dan was in charge of audio development he designed the sound effects to be utilized throughout gameplay as well as the music Anthony acted as the team s producer he designed production plans and schedules to ensure that team was making adequate progress every week Our motivation for this project was to design and implement a game that would be marketable it is our intention to continue development after the completion of this project and have Xeero commercially published Xeero will be released in stages so that additional content may be distributed to players over time Releases will be episodic our initial release will contain only a few levels but each successive installment will add more levels mechanics and story beats Between updates players will have access to a level editor that allow them to create and share levels using the mechanics that have already been released Over the course of the project the team has been exhibiting and testing the game Xeero has been demoed at PAX East and other local exhibitions and has been playtested by dozens of students and players 2 Background 2 1 Concept Is your computer running slowly Suffering from data corruption and software glitches Your machine may already be infected by The Alpha Virus Before you throw your com
41. an acquire to upgrade their character Some levels contain special rewards for the player like an upgrade or a container with a large sum of money that the player can only collect once i e after they have been collected for the first time they stop appearing in the level These special rewards may take more effort for the player to collect or may require an ability the player has yet to gain For these the player may want to revisit previously cleared programs to collect these rewards Once the player reaches the end of the level and stomps out the bug they are transported back to the hub level to which the program is connected 3 4 3 Hubs Hubs act as branching points for Figure 18 Money scattered around a level levels in Xeero The entire experience of the game is broken into installments and each installment has its own singular hub and levels connected to that hub From any hub the player can travel to programs in that hub or to adjacent hubs Typically the programs within each hub are blocked and can only be unblocked when the player destroys bugs in previous programs Thus each level of a hub unlocks a later level leading finally to the last level of the hub a boss fight Hubs the levels within them and the boss fight are designed around a theme allowing the visual layout of hubs to vary significantly from installment to installment Each hub is also focused on introducing new digitizable objects and allowing the pla
42. any forms but the majority of enemies in the installment developed for this project are viruses Viruses are not too difficult to defeat one on one but they have the ability to replicate themselves quickly overwhelming the player Each virus is designed to encourage the player to discover and exercise different strategies and moves see Mechanics Attacking and Defending Figure 49 Variations on the same type of enemy in scale and color scheme Enemies can vary in difficulty two enemies of the same type may not have the same difficulty Enemies that are more difficult are larger in size and the color palette used for the enemy goes from cool colors to warm colors blue green yellow orange red All enemies drop reward items when they are defeated representing the corrupted data they are releasing Most enemies drop Health Data that immediately heal the player and BitBucks that the player can use to buy upgrades at Vending Machines Spider Virus These are small enemies that are fairly easy to defeat alone but can replicate frequently They are susceptible to most attacks and the player is free to use any preferred strategy to dispatch them though it is advisable to destroy them quickly Figure 50 A spider virus Spider viruses are designed to be multi purpose with both long range and close range attacks In a large arena groups of spiders can be deadly when targeting the player from far away but their attack
43. as given on allowing the player to use whatever control scheme they found comfortable This manifested itself early in development with bind able key mappings for all controls controller support for the PC version of the game and both a left handed and right handed control schemes for the mouse and keyboard Many PC games are exclusively designed for right handed players The decision to by default assign left handed controls in addition to right handed controls was mostly a personal one the designer of the game Eric is left handed Many of the games inspiring Xeero were built for consoles and the game s controls are most similar to third person action games so controller support was added for players who are accustomed to or prefer the controls of console action games Additionally player feedback was vital in crafting the controls used by the game Often usability testing revealed conflicts with the designer s intention for controls and player s expectations New user settable control options and control redesign emerged from player feedback 3 7 Objects The following section details how the design philosophies described in the Mechanics section were applied in the design of level elements in the game 3 7 1 Platforms Figure 28 A static platform a basic building block of levels These are the building blocks of levels and the primary means for the player to get from place to place Xeero can stand run and
44. ate in the design of the audio experience of Xeero Working in a small group also fostered a cohesive creative vision for the game Eric with hands in both code and art was able to create a game that displays a unified vision in character prop and environment design The foundational mechanics of the game platforming digitizing and combat are iterated and combined over the course of the game to create new mechanics in a way that relates to the overall experience of the game 8 1 2 Dan Acito Overall the group worked together really well We were always good about communicating with each other and making sure everyone knew where everyone else was in terms of work Whenever Dan would finish up some of the sound effects he would push them into the repository so that Eric could make sure that the sound cues were hooked into the code The same applied the other way around as well Whenever Eric added a new obstacle or mechanic to the game he would demo it to Dan and would describe the general functionality and intention of his new addition This would help Dan get a sense of what kind of sound effect he should make and how to time it appropriately These meetings helped keep the two in sync throughout the project which ultimately increased productivity 8 1 3 Anthony Sessa Despite joining the project later in development getting up to speed on what was already accomplished as well as what still had to be done was simple The rep
45. ategy the player intends to employ like using dodges and quick movements to flank enemies committing to big slow devastating attacks to quickly clear out enemies moving quickly and committing only to quick light attacks Birkhead argues that successful action games give the player a variety of viable intentions allowing the player to play the game in the most satisfying way Birkhead also argues the value of constraints or restricting the viable set of intentions to which the player has access based on the environment or enemies the player is facing By introducing new environments or enemies that favor one type of intention over another the designer can keep the player engaged by encouraging them to mix strategies creating more interesting strings of attacks These philosophies were considered in the design of combat in Xeero The game sought a relatively few number of commands dedicated to combat but combined with mechanics for platforming and puzzle solving it allowed for a breadth of intention from the player on how they chose to dispatch the malware before them Additionally at nearly any moment or state of the character the player has access to most of their arsenal allowing them to string together series of actions 3 5 5 Reaper Near the beginning of the game the player gains Reaper a telekinetic blade This weapon follows the player for the remainder of the game and grants Xeero many of his offensive and defensive
46. ay be incredibly obvious to the players but we re trying to gauge their comprehension e Remind them that don t know is an acceptable answer to any question Tutorial Program 1 1 The majority of the questions here are about gauging the player s understanding for the rules of the game and to see how effective the tutorial messages are at explaining them First Breakpoint After seeing the info page for the breakpoint and touching it ask the player to explain the purpose of the breakpoint Can they describe how they think it works First Long Jump How many attempts did they make before they crossed the long gap Ask the player to explain the process of crossing a large gap like that if they encounter it again The purpose to ensure they understand why they made the jump This part is designed to teach them how to time the double jump for maximum distance Split Path Which path did they attempt first Path with the block or the path to the chip If they chose the block path ask them why after they reach the chip path Did they not see the other path or did they choose to ignore it Digitizing the Block After gaining the DigitizeBlock upgrade ask the player to explain what they think the tutorial prompt means After returning to the platform ask the player to explain again how they think Digitizing works Ask them if the prompt helped their understanding of the mechanic Double Wide Gap How many times did
47. be the maintenance required to add public Hitswitch bool On bool ShowL ink ParameterCategory As Corruptable LevelMarker Level Figure 128 The constructor for a HitSwitch which is used in the argument selector in the level editor them to the level editor To determine which objects should Figure 127 A argument selector for Hit Switches pulled directly from the be entered in the editor the level editor looks for a specific Ea petty Editor Entry C attribute that is specified in the definition of the class This attribute which also contains a directory in which to store the object tells the level editor to allow that type to be created from the editor It also looks for an Editor Constructor attribute on a constructor for the class so the editor can use the constructor for the object to directly construct the object from designer input The editor understands basic data types like integers floating point numbers strings and enumerations and is able to give the designer the appropriate GUI controls to allow them to enter the data for the object s constructor One of the inheritable methods WorldObjects share are editor metadata methods These allow WorldObjects to specify what kinds of data to use when displaying the object in the editor The object can specify models particles and wireframe information to be rendered 7 Project Management Anthony was responsible for handling all things project
48. bject each frame This data can then be stored compactly to be replayed when needed Play recording is a valuable tool when playtesting the game allowing Eric to re watch players playing the game and see how these players react to different sections of the levels This also allows move data to be separated and allows for example only the player character position and animation data to be extracted to show players a ghost of their previous play throughs of a level while they play 6 2 7 Level Editor As mentioned in the Design Level Editor section a level editor Programmer was created to facilitate the creation of GameWorlds This level editor needed to be powerful enough to allowed diverse levels to be created with dozens of different types of objects populating the level Additionally new objects and game elements were being built over the entire lifecycle of the project and many of those objects were required to be present in the level editor The objects themselves each had properties that the designer of levels can change The level editor also needed to be flexible enough to not require any maintenance to the editor to add new objects or change the properties of those objects so the focus could be given to creating new gameplay not ensuring the level editor catches up with the new objects To facilitate this the level editor in Xeero relies heavily on reflection and letting the definition of WorldObjects themselves
49. boss see section Digitizable Objects Block The player must use their dodging and jumping abilities to dodge the simple swipes of the boss s claws and can use their ability to block attacks to deflect ranged attacks emitted by the boss The boss incorporates a block object lodged in its chest The player can attack the block dislodging it allowing the player to digitize it The player can then use the block to interrupt the boss s attacks by forcing the boss to hit the block to stun the boss enough to allow the player to damage it eventually defeating the creature All levels in the game whether they are programs hubs or boss fights are designed to be modular Very few large set pieces were developed for the game Instead the world geometry puzzles and hazards are composed of smaller modular pieces each piece both altering the visual appearance and also the gameplay of the level This allows for more rapid level mockups and development and also allows more control and ease of use for players when the level editor 1s packaged and released with the game 3 5 Mechanics This section describes the how the game world is manipulated by the player and describes the motivation for incorporating each mechanic 3 5 1 Motivations In many platforming games and one of the games inspiring this project Portal the player is given a very small set of actions they can perform integral to type of gameplay in some platforme
50. ch use the functionality provided by FloatAnimators 6 2 2 GameWorlds WorldObjects are grouped together through GameWorlds These are the levels that create the hubs and programs GameWorlds can be saved to and loaded from files to facilitate level loading for the level editor see section Level Editor GameWorlds save each WorldObject that inhabits the world and the links between them GameWorlds also manage physics and rendering of the WorldObjects Physics Engine Originally Eric built a custom physics system to work with Xeero This allowed for basic control over objects using dynamics and collision detection While functional the system was problematic The system could handle and resolve collision between basic collision shapes like axis aligned bounding boxes and bounding spheres but the system could not resolve oriented bounding boxes and thus entirely ignored orientation rotational velocity and rotational acceleration The system also used rudimentary grid based space partitioning and suffered from severe performance dips when relatively few objects existed in proximity Mid way through development Eric researched third party physics engines to integrate into the game that satisfied the constraints of the project the engine needed to be high performance and designed for real time applications free and open licensed and built for the Microsoft Net platform After investigating engines like Havok Jitter Farseer and Be
51. connected to the machine by USB Note We had access to only one Xbox controller In addition we did not have access to headphones and the computers in the Zoo lab do not have speakers so sound was not evaluated e Build All playtesters are provided the same build of the game e Food All playtesters will be rewarded with pizza e People Testing can t be conducted without playtesters Game Content This protocol tests the tutorial level Program 1 1 the Hub an overworld level and the second level Program 1 2 comprising about 40 60 minutes of gameplay Test Walkthrough 1 Launch game build on lab machine 2 Playtester chooses control scheme keyboard or gamepad 3 Playtester plays through Program 1 1 the Hub and Program 1 2 a A team member administers the in game questionnaire as the playtester plays 4 Playtester fills out post play survey scale and short answer A team member points the tester to the survey upon completion of the test 5 Playtester eats free food 6 Team reviews gameplay videos The game build records all play sessions so further review can be conducted later on In Game Questionnaire Levels are broken up based on the discrete obstacles they contain At key points data collectors observing the players will ask questions about a specific mechanic combat sequence or puzzle Some general types of questions asked include e Can players describe the objective of a particular puzzle e Can players describe the
52. ctionality and visual style was implemented restricting the potential gameplay and story options and forcing the design of the game around the computer motif Initially the game s experience goals and target audience should be more clearly defined and the game should be more thoroughly designed and more lightly prototyped to allow for experimentation in finding mechanics that would fulfill the aforementioned goals and meet the needs of the audience Over the development of the game several features were implemented that eventually did not make an appearance in the first installment of the game like other digitizable objects bombs and unstable blocks In later projects the production of the game should follow a formal methodology to define features to implement and milestones to reach to help minimize unnecessary development and prioritize important functionality 3 3 2 Dan Acito If within the budget Dan would have invested in some better hardware to utilize for the music production While the cables and audio interface that Dan borrowed were in pristine condition they did not do justice to the low quality keyboard controller that Dan was using Given Dan s limitations the music quality turned out quite good but it easily could have been much better with higher quality tools Now that Dan has had some experience using asset lists for sound design he knows that organization is extremely important In future projects not only w
53. currency varies with low value money being easily reached but higher more valuable denominations farther away or requiring more finesse or puzzle solving BitBucks are designed to be very frequently picked up giving a small but consistent reward to the player for progressing They can be used to Figure 52 A single BitBuck entice the player to move to one area or another or to point them to an important object for them to focus on Health Data These rewards immediately restore some of the player s health They offer respite to the player between particularly dangerous encounters in which the player may have taken a large amount of damage Health data can be scattered sparsely through levels and can also be dropped by defeated enemies Figure 53 A piece of health data Archives Archives contain both BitBucks and Health Data in small quantities and are refreshed each time a level begins The player can attack them to collect the rewards concealed within These can be placed in combat areas to give the player a source for more health 1f they run low during Figure 54 An archive containing compressed health data and BitBucks the encounter Big Archives These one time rewards contain large quantities of Health Data and BitBucks They are placed in optional locations that Figure 55 A big archive containing a large amount of e a E Le ha require substantial effort to reach Vend
54. d anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes see Appendix E for an example of minutes created for a meeting 7 2 2 Prep These quick meetings occurred just before Advisor meetings and provided the team the opportunity to sync up one last time before meeting with project advisors These meetings typically lasted anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes 7 2 3 Advisor These meetings occurred each Monday with Professor Moriarty Over the course of an hour the team provided Professor Moriarty an update on the development of the project and what the team hoped to accomplish over the next week Upcoming events such as open houses or festivals were discussed as well 7 3 Festivals Since Xeero is an indie title getting public exposure is more difficult when compared to a AAA title As such festivals were a key resource that the development team took advantage of to get the game in front of players Anthony was responsible for registering Xeero and the team for these festivals and coordinating the logistics for attendance A spreadsheet was created and updated over the course of development that provided information on all of the upcoming festivals and conferences that the team wanted Xeero to be a part of PAX East Made in Mass and Boston Mini Fig were just a few of the festivals that Xeero made it to At the time of this writing Xeero has been shown at the WPI booth at PAX East as one of the four student projects as well as at 1ts own table at the annual
55. d file so that it fit better with an animation Other sounds needed to be completely redone As before Dan would find some sort of source sound to use as a starting point and then would proceed to edit it using Reaper When Dan thought that the sound was finished he would audition it to Eric for approval Once they both agreed on the sound Dan would mark it off as completed on the asset list The last step once all of the sounds were in the engine was to do a final pass through each file in XACT Once all of the music was introduced see section on music this would ensure that all of the sounds were perfectly blended together Editing and integrating the sound effects into the game was certainly a lengthy task but Dan s goals were all met Xeero was now full of audio cues that dramatically improved the quality of the game adding to the sense of immersion and providing more direct feedback As Eric continues to add more content to the game this process will repeat itself as new objects and animations will need new sounds to accompany them furthermore there will always be room for improvement as Dan continues to hone his audio editing skills 5 2 Music The following section will look at Dan s second job for this project which was to write and record the music that would serve as the soundtrack for Xeero We will discuss the steps that Dan took to prepare for this task including obtaining the appropriate hardware and software Ne
56. d fire lasers at Xeero The player can dodge to avoid their assault The player can also attack the turrets to destroy them and 1f they are far enough away the player can block and counter their attacks to destroy them see Mechanics Defensive Abilities Figure 43 A laser turret Purge Gates Figure 44 A purge gate purging a block These gates don t physically impede Xeero s progress but instead purge any digitizable object that touches the surface of the gate whether they are materialized in the world or carried by Xeero in his gauntlet If the player needs to transport a digitizable object from one area to another they must either find a new way to reach the area or disable the gate with Switches 3 7 10 Switches Switches act as puzzle elements in the game These are the locks for which the player must use a key or a specific type of action to unlock These can be linked to any receiver in the game a receiver being an object like Gates Slicers Compressors etc and can be arranged to challenge the player in many different ways Hit Switch These are simple switches triggered by a swing of the player s weapon A hit switch can be activated as long as the player can get close to 1t They can be placed behind large gaps requiring the player to figure out how to cross the gap in order to reach the switch Hit switches can be linked with each other requiring the player to touch every sw
57. d on simulating cartoon like visuals and animations Xeero also drew inspirations from video games using a similar style Xeero was inspired by games of the Tales series Games in these series have heavily anime inspired stylized graphics Character proportions are often shorter and the colors are often solid and bright Partially a product of the technical limitations of their time and features of anime often models Figure 81 Colors and character proportions in Tales of contained simple shapes and colors with Symphonia ee much of the detail of characters and props informed by shading In several 3D games of the series like Namco s Tales of Symphonia pictured above the games use a combination of cel shading using flat binary light and dark areas for shadows and pre baked smooth shading on the textures of models Additionally to help distinguish the objects from the environment and mimic the drawing techniques used in cartoons and anime characters and props all have black outlines EP 4 TtM Thi ae Games in the Kingdom Hearts series also provided inspiration for art While the early ames do not use cel shading or dynamicall Figure 82 Texture baked shading in Kingdom Hearts II 8 a y y Renmiri generated shading of any kind the games still attempt to create visuals reminiscent of the style of Disney animations There 1s an emphasis on large proportions for both charac
58. de of the game The story encompassed by the first segment the segment this project is designed to create introduces the player to the main actors in the story and establishes the Alpha Virus as a threat At the beginning of the story once the player starts the game the Alpha Virus can be seen downloading itself into the player s computer corrupting and distorting the player s display The player must then run Xeero exe ostensibly an anti virus program to eliminate the Alpha Virus This leads the player into the world of Xeero They follow the freshly compiled protagonist as he drops into the infected system With barely enough time to get his bearings he is immediately confronted by the Alpha Virus The massive creature crosses Xeero s path but the anti virus program is so insignificant to the beast Xeero doesn t even catch its attention Before long the creature departs off to spread corruption and mayhem leaving Xeero alone to ponder his chances against the behemoth Not long after Xeero witnesses his companion program chasing after the beast oblivious to Xeero intent on fulfilling her mission Xeero is instantly smitten and resolves to find the Alpha Virus if that means that he can find the girl Here the player starts the game entering the tutorial and joining the world of Xeero 3 4 Level Structure The following describes the different types of levels in Xeero and their intended purpose This
59. ded for the game grew load times grew longer resulting in delays of nearly a minute before the game would start Using so many assets had a high memory footprint running the risk of the game running out of memory before the application even started Thus an improved content system was developed This system allowed the code to treat game assets as if they were constantly present and allowed the game to lazily load content or only load game content as it was needed Content in the game was modified so rather than directly handle assets WorldObjects handled lightweight tags to assets These WorldObjects could treat the tags as the assets themselves and these tags would only be translated into assets when the asset was needed for rendering if the asset wasn t loaded the renderer wouldn t attempt to draw the asset Each tag when used would send a notification to the content loading system that an asset was requested and a separate thread would load the asset while the game runs This system also allowed for flexible control over groups of assets Each asset would be tagged for its usage from general purposes like game levels or splash screen to more specific object tags like block objects or compressor objects The system allows groups of assets to be loaded or unloaded based on those tags Assets could also be given priority so when a cluster of assets are required at once the content loading thread
60. developing process Our friends Caitlin Malone and Dan Manzo helped us design and implement a testing protocol which we were able to use to gain much needed user feedback These tests were extremely helpful and could not have been accomplished as easily without their assistance Caitlin went on further to assist us in writing a business plan that our team plans to expand on in the near future We d like to extend our thanks to the WPI IMGD community Our fellow students took time to test our game and provided us much encouragement Their excitement to see us succeed was a driving factor for us A special thanks to Emily Hensley who is a constant source of inspiration and whose faith and encouragement spurred Eric Anumba on through the course of the project Finally thanks to friends and family At no time were we ever short of support and we are very appreciative of all of you Table of Contents A A A ee ee li ACKNOWIe demente ie a li Ta ONO AS e eet atari octet eesti ear e e iv o A ree ee eee ee eee oe 1 e An rn eE 2 2l 0 0 7 9 A RP O eieaieldrenteiates a as tani eeiatas tas 2 2 2 Experience Goal and AUCICNCE ccccccccsecccseeeeceececeeceseeeeeseucessueeeseueeseueeseusesseeesaaees 4 20 GONCEDE ON sia abel 6 23 Ondin ar UK dE MOI la a neces 6 2 3 2 Forming the Team Dan and Audio occcocccoccccccncconcncconccncnconcnnncnnnnnonnnnonnrnnnanonnnnss 8 2 3 3 Forming the Team Anthony and ProductiON ooccooco
61. e a basic attack and the ability to block and lets the player engage in combat with the enemies that appear in the game Figure 3 Xeero attacking with Reaper 2 2 Experience Goal and Audience The game was designed to be played by established fans of 3D action games and platformers such as those available for popular consoles like the Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation Action and platform games focus on the player having quick reflexes and the ability to perform controller moves with high precision These players derive satisfaction from completing challenging levels and honing their skills Thus the game seeks to evoke satisfaction from the player while also offering tough but forgiving gameplay The game seeks to evoke a sense of satisfaction in the player with themselves by doing or witnessing a moment in gameplay that makes them feel like they have impressively mastered the rules of the world To that end the Xeero is focused on having the user experience two types of moments when playing the game Figure 4 Xeero acquiring a new ability Unlocking an exciting new ability The player is given upgrade chips over the course of the game each giving the player a new ability At the moment of acquisition a burst of light and energy see the figure above emits from the player to reward the player for their gain Additionally the new ability should be exciting and interesting to use and at first use the play
62. e assets He tried his hand at building a game engine from the ground up using OpenGL and he worked with a team of other students to develop an arcade style game Boom Zap Pow for the Microsoft Kinect for Windows pictured below By his senior year having built a handful of other games Eric wanted to build a larger project that he could refine and improve He created the concept for the character and outlined the gameplay he d like to implement By the end of the class Figure 8 Boom Zap Pow a game for the Microsoft Kinect he had produced a prototype for Xeero with a few working levels Figure 9 An early prototype of Xeero After graduating Eric continued to work on the project refining what was already present and adding new features The prototype created for UK covered the core platforming and digitizing mechanics but Eric wanted to add combat more digitizable objects and more puzzles He continued working on Xeero as a hobby as he started the graduate program Worcester Polytechnic Institute s Interactive Media and Game Development program Early in the program he demoed the game to Professor Brian Moriarty who encouraged Eric to pursue it as his Master s Project He advised Eric to continue refining the game to seek attention at conventions and to pursue commercial distribution 2 3 2 Forming the Team Dan and Audio When Dan and Eric met they were both attending a training seminar for i
63. e distorted and jarring Thankfully for the most part there weren t too many frequencies that needed adjusting The main thing to do was to balance the volume between the audio cues and the music stream The music was actually much quieter than the audio cues so Dan needed to increase the volume on the music stream slightly Once this was accomplished the game audio was complete The music development task was very long but certainly very rewarding Dan was able to arrange several pieces of music that fit quite well into the game The process certainly helped Dan to improve his musical abilities as well as gave him a perfect chance to practice his editing techniques Future levels of the game would ideally have their own unique music so Dan would need to repeat this process again for any future development 6 Technical Development Eric was responsible for the technical development of Xeero The following section describes the technology used in the development of the game and some of the major systems created in development 6 1 Framework and Platforms Xeero 1s built with Microsoft XNA Framework specifically for Windows The game as mentioned in the Concept Origin section was originally built as a final project for an XNA game programming class making the choice of framework a necessity for this project Microsoft XNA was built to release games on various Windows platforms Windows PCs Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 However as
64. e learning it e Are objectives within levels clear Do they find themselves getting stuck anywhere Level Pacing e Are levels too long Do they feel like they need breaks within levels e How do they find the length of individual encounters Any particular encounters that feel too long or short Difficulty e Do they find themselves retrying jumps too often e Do they find themselves frequently retrying combat encounters e Are the checkpoints spaced close enough so players can quickly get back to retrying the area at which they failed Protocol Details Materials Needed amp Controls e In game questionnaire This is to be filled out by a data collector who watched the players move through the levels and asked questions as they reached key points in the level to gauge their impressions about specific game details e Post play survey This is to be filled out by the player after the complete the game to gauge their overall impressions with the game e Post play video data As the players play the game the game will collect stats and record a video of the player moving through the levels to be reviewed after the test has concluded e Location All test players will play in the IMGD Zoo lab e Testing machines The computers needed are already present in the Zoo lab and are Windows 7 machines No outside software will be used during our tests The players have the option of using a keyboard and mouse for input or an Xbox controller
65. e object can be struck by weapons When the player is attacking if their weapon collides with an HitTarget object the weapon then gives information to the object about the type of hit like the position of impact the source of the attack and how much damage the attack would do without any regard to how the hit target would respond to the attack Most interaction between objects therefore do not occur at the per object level instead checking against specific interfaces This allows objects like the Compressor to detect motion of all attackable objects rather than just the player to allow the player to attempt to use the compressor in combat to defeat enemies expressing one of the moments of gameplay Xeero attempts to create the combined interaction of game mechanics Animators While behaviors give WorldObjects specific reactions to different events and interfaces give WorldObjects a generalized way to interact with each other animators are used within WorldObjects to create standardized animated motion across different objects as a result of different stimuli For example a ShakeAnimator when triggered will vibrate an object for a short amount of time Some objects that implement the HitTarget interface will use a ShakeAnimator to vibrate themselves in a standardized way when they are struck Many objects like BitBucks and Health Data that populate levels float slowly up and down while they are in a level and as su
66. e the player combats For these animations the primary focus was to give realistic properties to unrealistic motion The player may be able to float in mid air telekinetically grab a block object or spin in mid air but the properties of realistic motion like Disney s 12 Principles of Animation Thomas and Johnston are considered for each motion Most animations attempt to telegraph their motion with necessary windup give a sense of weight to the action with appropriate follow through and attempt to make the objects feel like actual physics constructs with overlapping actions and considering the inertia of the object s component pieces This helps establish satisfying motion for character actions typified in the games of the Kingdom Hearts series Additionally each character has a large number of motions and the player is able to perform actions in rapid succession see Mechanics Attacking and Defending Thus the characters need to be able to quickly and seamlessly transition from one animation into another Partially this is accomplished with a small number of transition animations specifically leading one animation into another but the majority of animations work from a given idle pose of the character into whichever action the character will perform To avoid any unattractive snapping from one pose to another an animation blending system was developed see Animation Blending to allow any arbitrary number of animations to
67. e them common properties Behaviors have access to all of the lifecycle methods of WorldObjects and can force the WorldObject to react to different events in different ways For example a FirewallFizzler behavior when hooked to a WorldObject will automatically destroy the object and release a particle effect when the WorldObject touches the firewall at the bottom of every level This is a behavior that is very common among WorldObjects but isn t specific to any specific game element This allows objects of different types like Enemies and Archives to have the same standardized behavior Behaviors can be used to define gameplay interactions between objects like the BrokenFaller behavior that causes an object to shudder and fall when the player stands on it or they can provide engine level functionality like the ModelRenderer behavior that allows the object to set a model to be drawn on the screen Behaviors are designed to implement standardized actions among WorldObjects and reduce the amount of redundant code that would otherwise need to be written Behaviors answer the question of how a WorldObject behaves Interfaces Alternatively interfaces determine what a WorldObject does WorldObjects use interfaces the object oriented programming concept to understand different types of objects and to understand how different objects are allowed to interact For example objects that implement the IHitTarget interface advertise that thes
68. e to red and begins to flash when the player has low health 3 8 2 Low Health Indicator When the player has low health the edges of the screen glow red and a quiet but noticeable tone begins to play warning the player 3 8 3 Character Portrait The character portrait shows the emotional state of Xeero over the course of the level Xeero s portrait will emote contextually as events happen in the game Most often Xeero 1s idle He will begin to glare when he enters combat and he will have a more intense glare as he Figure 60 Some of the different states of the character portrait performs attacks He squeezes his eyes shut when hit in combat and his head will droop when he has low health His head droops more intensely when he crashes His eyes will be upturned happily when he collects Health Data or BitBucks 3 8 4 Digitize Slots The digitize slots show the player what is currently in their gauntlet The player is allowed to store up to two objects in the gauntlet one left and one right reflected by the icons in the HUD The indicator is designed to display information for each state the object is in within the gauntlet and to have a visual cue for every action the player can perform with the object The indicator matches the state of the object animating to show it being digitized to or materialized from Xeero s gauntlet It shows the object crumbling when it has been disassembled and wipes 1t away whe
69. ed the edges on the character attempting to make the character seem less potentially malicious and friendlier The figure to the right shows the evolution as the proportions of the character were finalized After the character concept was designed Eric next designed the concepts for the types of objects Xeero would use and the concept of digitizing and the computer motif was developed The figure below shows some sketches of the initial objects designed for the 1 F AN Y 7 1 37 ITA HR a 2 3 E o O aal G far AS A Ay Z AA Ca sB ae y 9 7 a f J i e o gt Es we 4 A i reg J a LA SH R 2 B A 3 7 i y pp th las p7 A bh As K Ds IS Figure 78 Early sketches if Xeero y pue J 0 O j p AA 4 gt f Fiad Fores Ak s ns Saherney Heh 07 4 j ye F i pg 4 a Zna J ye heek Ken Figure 79 Early object sketches game including a block an elevator platform that would raise and lower for Xeero to stand on a key object that unlock locked doors and bombs that would destroy certain obstacles As the protagonist and associated objects took shape Eric began designing the aesthetic the rest of the game would employ 4 2 Style 3D Figure 80 A sample level in Xeero From the start of the project Eric had a preference for stylized 3D rendering stemming from an early interest in animated movies The creation of the art for the game was focuse
70. effects and purposes and it is impressed upon the player to determine how to use the objects with which they are presented to solve puzzles or pass obstacles Blocks Blocks are solid cubes tough and sturdy and not easily moved The player can pick up and reuse blocks which take up a slot in their gauntlet s inventory Despite their simple nature blocks have a variety of uses Blocks can be used like platforms When in the world the player can stand on Figure 35 A digitizable block them and grab onto their edges The player can materialize a block in front of Xeero to climb up to reach high platforms If the player is in mid air the player can materialize a block as an improvised platform allowing them to cross large gaps The player can also use a block s sturdy nature to create obstructions Some objects prevent the player from progressing Gates block the player s path Slicers can move too quickly to be dodged and Compressors crush any object that pass under it but Figure 36 A compressor ledged in a block the player can wedge a block under them jamming them and allowing the player to pass through unharmed The weight and shape of the block can also help the player solve puzzles Buttons require the player or another heavy weight to keep them active and Block Switches require a block to activate The player can slam a block onto those switches activating them to solve puzzles Blocks also have u
71. ented programming like inheritance and polymorphism through classes and interfaces Eric developed a custom game engine to run Xeero using the underlying features provided by XNA The engine provides a renderer a physics engine a particle system an audio player an asynchronous content manager GUI management animation Al and a level editor The following sections describe some of the major systems and notable features implemented for Xeero 6 2 1 WorldObjects The foundation of the engine is built around WorldObjects These represent every element of a level from the player and enemies to level geometry and invisible triggers These provide generic functionality that can be specialized by creating derived classes WorldObjects provide basic information about an object At its core every WorldObject is a physics object and has a transform defining its position and orientation in space and a collision volume which determines how much space in the world the object takes Each WorldObject also contains inheritable functions that are automatically called over the lifecycle of an object in a level letting the programmer process the object when it is added to or removed from a level when it is supposed to draw itself update its physics or respond to collisions WorldObjects also allow the designer of levels to define relationships between these objects Each object supports linking to another object to denote that these ob
72. epth vs breadth in combat design an interactive visualization gt Birkhead Mike Opinion What Makes Combat Fun Opinion What Makes Combat Fun Gamasutra 21 Sept 2011 Web lt hitp www gamasutra com view news 37356 Opinion_What_Makes_Combat_Fun php gt C Radford Bastion Review Xbox PC Page 2 of 2 Lazy Tech Guys Lazy Tech Guys 22 Aug 2011 Web lt http lazytechguys com reviews bastion review xbox pc 2 gt Chambers Dust An Elysian Tail on PS4 Is Adequate Dust An Elysian Tail Game Skinny 29 Oct 2014 Web 27 Apr 2015 lt http www gameskinny com 7qz3d dust an elysian tail on ps4 is adequate gt Darksiders Nordic Games 5 Jan 2010 Video game Dust An Elysian Tail Microsoft Studios 15 Aug 2012 Video game Francis Geoffrey Cockos Reaper User Guide v 4 76 Dec 2014 Web lt http dl reaper fm userguide ReaperUserGuide476C pdf gt Getting Started with XACT Getting Started with XACT Microsoft Corporation Web lt https msdn microsoft com en us library f827592 aspx gt God of War Sony Computer Entertainment 22 Mar 2005 Video game Hruska Joel Microsoft Kills Xbox 360 PC Cross platform Development Declares DirectX no Longer Evolving ExtremeTech ExtremeTech Feb 2013 Web lt http www extremetech com gaming 147289 microsoft kills xbox 360pc cross platform development declares directx no longer evolving gt Jackson Simon XNA Is No More as the Phoenix Rises
73. er should feel immediate satisfaction Figure 5 Combat in Xeero aided by compressors Combined interaction of game mechanics The player is given tools over the course of the game and sees a variety of objects each with their own effects or dangers In certain moments several different mechanics should interplay in a way that works to the player s advantage either by helping them swiftly and deftly win a fight or clear a puzzle and the player should feel a sense of satisfaction when the gameplay just clicks In the other moments of gameplay the player should be constantly engaged and challenged Each puzzle or encounter of the game should be challenging for the player to complete requiring heightened reflexes and the player to exercise practiced mechanics but also should be flexible in allowing the player to fail early and often The player is allowed to die in the game either by falling off of the map into the program wide firewall below or by running out of health by getting hit by enemies On death the game should quickly reset and drop the player off right where they failed so they may attempt the section of level again Failing at a puzzle should be of little consequence to the player and they should be allowed to quickly try again until they execute the section correctly Thus the game should offer ample checkpoints and very quick respawn animations 2 3 Concept Origin Figure 6 The program wide f
74. er work on the Kingdom Hearts series and Carlo Castellano for the game Invaders Corruption Shimomura composed her songs as orchestral arrangements designed to be intense and suspenseful Castellano s music was more digitally oriented but was arranged to be upbeat fast paced Combining these two styles would be the approach that Dan would take for creating the music for Xeero Eric and Dan determined that roughly 4 to 5 songs were necessary for the first installment of Xeero There would need to be a theme for the actual levels enemy combat the final boss the overarching world hub and one for the title menu Generally the tunes were to be fairly upbeat and action like Eric professed a liking for classical instrumentation with a blend of more digital sounding instruments This 1s the direction that Dan would take when arranging the different pieces of music for Xeero When Dan began to work on the first music piece he did not really have a use for it in mind His ultimate goal of this piece was to make sure he was completely re familiarized with the Logic interface as well as to experiment with the different virtual software instruments in Logic This first session would help Dan to find multiple instruments for the different layers that each song would have In terms of the development process Dan liked to start with one track and then add on more layers as he went Typically he would start with either the bass or the rhythm tracks Af
75. ers blended well with one another One way that this was accomplished was through volume automation Use the automation tool in Logic the volume for each layer could seamless be altered throughout the whole song a B05 0 3440 CEED Library Region Universe Returns Scatter Pad MS R Daylight Piano e viore Search Library gt Track Daylight Piano Experimental Ghost Piano Backwards Bowed Piano 3 Ms R i Before Talkies Read Daylight Piano Stereo Out Universe Returns MS R Read Glassy FM Lead M S R Read Plucked Cycles MS R Read Volume M S V African Kit MS R Daylight Piano be Figure 126 Screenshot of the volume automation function in Logic Pro X This would ensure less important layers would be brought down in volume so that the more important ones could be heard and vice versa It also made it much easier to have more seamless music transitions through crossfading Lastly the different layers would be quantized This would restrict the notes to a more rigid format and automatically correct the timing of the different audio regions While Dan timed the notes the best he could the quantization process ensured that each region would be timed perfectly Eric told Dan that due to how the engine streamed audio from disk the audio would not initially need to be compressed This allowed Dan to render the music in wav format so that it would have a much higher quality This
76. ete instances Using hardware instancing a model is stored once in buffers in video memory and all of the instances that use that model are also stored in a buffer on the GPU requiring the engine only make a single call to the GPU to draw multiple instances of an object Using this technique most of the objects in the game are instanced reducing the bottleneck of communication between the CPU and GPU Additionally the engine attempts to cull as many full objects from the scene to be rendered as it can Levels in Xeero being large open and reminiscent of a void see Visual Art Environment allow the players to see most of the objects that are in the level This can cause high overhead for the GPU to render every object in a level each frame So the engine attempts to cull as many instances of objects as it can before calling the GPU Most objects are culled using frustum culling objects outside the camera s frustum cannot be seen and are therefore not drawn Other objects can be culled based on their visibility and transparency settings 6 2 3 Content Management Early in Xeero s development loading game assets was handled simply every asset in the game was loaded all at once before the game started and were used as needed Working under these assumptions content in game was always considered present when it was needed and the code was written accordingly Predictably this system became problematic when the number of assets nee
77. ey rate the difficulty of the final encounter e el 9 Te Te Treo How would they rate the duration of the final encounter ms 2 9 Tr In combat did they sea comm ome oneness How many times did they attempt the final encounter Ask them if they were developing a strategy to fight the enemies like going after the bigger ones first mashing buttons etc Extra Notes Observations Appendix J Xeero Test Protocol 2 Post Pla y Questionnaire Xeero Feedback Survey Required 1 What is your favorite genre of game 2 How clear were the instructions tutorial presented in the game Mark only one oval Notclearatall C C C C Very clear 3 Were there any instructions you didn t understand 4 Were individual objectives within levels clear to you E g How to open a gate or how to cross an extra large gap Mark only one oval Not clear at all C A Very clear 5 Did you find yourself getting stuck or frustrated anywhere If so where specifically 6 Me 8 9 10 11 How would you rate the overall number of combat encounters Mark only one oval Toofew C COD CD C C Toomany How would you rate the overall difficulty of the combat encounters Mark only one oval Tooeasy C C gt C Too hard How would you rate the difficulty of making jumps and reaching platforms Mark only one oval Tooeasy C C
78. from the Ashes Dark Genesis 17 Mar 2015 Web 27 Apr 2015 lt http darkgenesis zenithmoon com xna is no more as the phoenix rises from the ashes gt JoouChiyanmon Cyberspace Move Digital image DeviantArt Web Justice VonBrandt Cyberspace Digital image DeviantArt Web Levin Raph Inconsolata Web Kingdom Hearts II Square Enix 22 Dec 2005 Video game Ninjatic Floating Ruins Digital image DeviantArt Web Northernlion Let s Play Bastion Episode 1 The Rippling Walls Online video clip YouTube Google 9 Dec 2011 Web Nubik Spritefont 2 Texture Tool Web Portal Valve Corporation 9 Oct 2007 Video game Portal 2 Puzzle Maker Reflection Cube Valve Developer Community Valve Corporation Web lt https developer valvesoftware com wik1 Portal_2_Puzzle_Maker Reflection_Cube gt Real Time Physics Simulation Bullet Physics Library RealTime Physics Simulation Web lt http bulletphysics org gt RENMIRI Final Fantasy X Spira s Tales Final Fantasy X Spira s Tales 20 Jan 2006 Web 27 Apr 2015 lt http spirablog blogspot com 2006 01 quidditch versus blitzball html gt Stolpe Philip About About MonoGame Web lt http www monogame net about gt Tales of Symphonia Namco 29 Aug 2003 Video game Thomas Frank and Ollie Johnston The Illusion of Life Disney Animation New York Disney Editions 1995 Print Traks Andres BulletSharp BulletSharp Web
79. gameplay videos The video ended up with a final running time of just under one minute Trimming the fat off the trailer so to speak really aided in creating an exciting video for gamers to watch 9 Postmortem In this section we will reflect about our individual experiences with the project We will discuss what worked well for us and the methods that we found were most successful Additionally we will discuss some of the issues that we ran into what went wrong and poor decisions that we might have made Finally we will wrap up by discussing what we might have done differently and what we took away from this experience 8 1 What Went Right 8 1 1 Eric Anumba Testing and iterative refinement were a boon for the project by developing testing and refining gameplay in Xeero the team is able to create a game focused around the experience of the players During testing we encouraged the players to be vocal about their intentions as they played to better understand both what the players thought they could as well as what they wanted to do Focusing first around managing expectations and granting affordances the players believed they should have helped create a positive experience for players playing Xeero Communication between Eric and Dan was vital for developing art assets that contributed to the cohesive whole of the game By discussing new features mechanics and objects and the motivations behind them the two were able to collabor
80. he course of this project each time changing based on feedback and observations from players Initially the only method for teaching the player new information was through tutorial tooltips pictured below Figure 71 A sample tutorial tooltip These tooltips displayed all of the information the player was given about the game from controls to mechanics to object properties Inside levels there were orbs the player could touch which would trigger the tooltips to appear The intention was for the player to see and touch each orb read the information and use that information to proceed in the level However initial playtest showed players avoiding the orbs missing the displayed tooltip or not reading the messages they contained Then inevitably the player would attempt and fail the section of the level the tutorial was attempting to teach them about and the player would not understand what they were intended to do To remedy these issues four new types of tutorials were introduced to Xeero tutorial equations info pages revamped tutorial tooltips and loading tips 3 10 1 Tutorial Equations Figure 72 A tutorial bubble Initially information about the controls of the game e g press A to jump was given exclusively through tutorial messages at the bottom of the screen This presented two problems Messages quickly became verbose for simple mechanics and in areas where there were several
81. ic frequencies of the sound could be heard Since some of the source files were not of very high quality 1t helped to eliminate extraneous sounds FX Track 1 ObjectDigitizeNew AAA FX Edit Options A VST ReaPitch Cockos z gt VST ReaEQ Cockos y Param _Zin2oue UL Q E Gain ola 4 Y Enabled Type High Shelf zj Y Log scale automated frequencies Frequency He p 20575 C7 Gain dB pa 11 6 Bandwidth oct od es 2 00 0 0 Addband Remove band Reset defaute 7 Showtabs Y Show gid E Show phase eon 0 0 0 0 CPU 0 0 sple Figure 121 Screenshot of Reaper where the sound speed has been compressed and higher frequencies have been attenuated After the sounds were edited they were ready to be exported The sounds would be rendered to 16 bit wav files with a 44 100k sampling rate After listening to the finished files a few times Dan could now import the sounds into the audio engine Since Eric was building Xeero using the Microsoft XNA engine the XACT audio engine was necessary for integrating the sounds into the game Dan had never worked with XACT before so he needed to do some research to become familiar with the interface This would also involve reading through the formal XACT user documentation Microsoft 2015 rii TESES giiziak dador 1 BA NN aj ES Audo A
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83. ill he follow recognizable naming conventions but he also will separate sounds into different categories so that they are easier to keep track of 8 3 3 Anthony Sessa Anthony would have liked to have gotten into contact with Eric and Dan a little earlier in the summer than he did This would have allowed him to get up to speed a little earlier and make the first couple of weeks planning out the first semester a little easier In addition while OpenProj a free to use application similar to Microsoft Project was suitable for planning out production schedules Anthony would have liked to have gotten his hands on a license for Microsoft Project since the far majority of companies in the industry use it in one form or another and being able to show that on his resume would have been a huge plus Finally Anthony wanted to budget more time for the team to prepare a Xeero presentation for the MassDigi Game Challenge in Boston The team was so focused on furthering the development of the game and adding content that the deadline for the contest snuck up The game was just a couple of extra days away from being ready to show at the contest and being able to get in there would have been a nice accolade for the team 9 Conclusion For this project three team members Eric Anumba Daniel Acito and Anthony Sessa worked to refine the game Xeero as their IMGD Master s Project The game an action puzzle platformer developed for the PC will eventual
84. ing most surfaces use a single flat color based on the color scheme shown above Then like in early Kingdom Hearts games a layer of soft shadows is baked into the texture Additionally to emphasize the contrast between these vibrant colors and the black or gray environments Xeero uses a full screen bloom effect on brighter colors This helps vibrant colors and bright particle effects show their intensity compared to the darkness of the rest of the world of Xeero Figure 87 Full screen bloom effect disabled Figure 88 Full screen bloom effect enabled 4 5 Lighting and Shading While Xeero employs soft shadows baked into textures the game also dynamically shades objects using cel shading techniques similar to those in the Tales series Figure 89 Xeero with and without cel shading In cel shading for any surface light values are calculated by determining the angle the surface makes with the light source like typical diffuse lighting However instead of allowing intermediate values of light and dark based on the angle of incident light angles below a certain threshold are considered light and others dark Using this binary measurement the surface is then shaded a preset shade based on whether it is light or dark Most levels of Xeero contain a single directional cel light which is used to determine the direction and intensity of the cel shading effect Figure 90 Shading in Xeer
85. ing Machines Vending Machines allow players to make use of any BitBucks collected They contain Upgrade Chips which the player can purchase and subsequently digitize The upgrades gained through vending machines are entirely optional but make some aspects of the game easier for the player Figure 56 An idle vending machine Figure 57 Xeero feeding money into the vending machine 3 8 HUD The following section describes the elements of the heads up display HUD used in Xeero The HUD is where most of the information needed by the player is located Unlike some action games but following the conventions of platformers Xeero attempts to keep the full state of the player on screen at all times Health Indicator each corner Health Bar Portrait a A xs RW Combo Meter 94 AA BitBucks Display Digitize Slots Figure 58 The HUD of Xeero marking relevant items 3 8 1 Health Bar The health bar or data fidelity meter indicates the player s health As Xeero takes damage from attacks his data becomes more Figure 59 The health bar when Xeero has low health corrupted and he loses data fidelity When the bar is empty Xeero crashes and is sent back to the last hit breakpoint to recompile The health bar ticks down as the player takes damage leaving behind a red indicator to show the player how much health was lost As the player loses health the bar changes color from blu
86. intended use Others were not timed well to an animation In these instances Dan needed to change the source sound file entirely whether he needed to shorten or lengthen the sound or simply replace it altogether In other instances it worked as bug testing for Eric as sometimes the sound cue was not hooked into the code properly If no sound played at all it meant that there was an error somewhere in the code that Eric would need to address Another advantage of giving Dan access to the levels was that he would sometimes find additional bugs completely unrelated to the audio It allowed the two to identify possible issues early in the development stage Once the majority of the sound effects from the asset list had been incorporated into the sound engine Eric and Dan needed to go down the list and discuss which sounds needed to be improved Many of the sounds worked well in the game and Eric felt that they didn t need much altering while others were in dire need of improvement The pair went down the asset list listening to each sound file individually If the two agreed that the sound was fine the way it 1s they would mark the sound as complete on the asset list If either thought that a sound needed to be improved Dan would make a note of it The tasks of updating sounds were kept track of on an issue tracker through Bitbucket Using the issue tracker we could flag different tasks with priority on how soon they should be addressed Whe
87. io so Dan became a member of the team 2 3 3 Forming the Team Anthony and Production Anthony was always willing and ready to jump into a leadership role whenever possible About a year into development Eric and Dan were introduced to Anthony through Professor Moriarty after one of his spring classes Anthony was returning to WPI for the IMGD graduate program working on the management track Anthony having been afforded the opportunity to take on leadership roles in multiple projects beforehand had served as the producer on his MQP Demon Dissension with Nick Konstantino Brian Seney and Mike Metzler the previous year Professor Moriarty informed Anthony that Eric and Dan were in need of a producer for Xeero since the project was beginning to ramp up into a full fledged project At the time Anthony was still looking for a project to work on for his graduate degree and Xeero presented the perfect opportunity to work on a project that had the potential to turn into something special Xeero not only provided another opportunity to gain experience as a producer but the potential to add a high quality portfolio piece to Anthony s resume Upon agreeing to join the team Anthony was granted access to the repository and he took time over the summer to begin planning out the development path the project would take 3 Design Eric was responsible for the concept and gameplay of Xeero The following section describes the concept story and
88. irewall threatening to destroy Xeero 2 3 1 Origin at UK and Entering WPI Eric originally created the design of the game as a class project in his undergraduate computer science program at the University of Kentucky At the time in second half of his senior year he attended the program s first game programming course and began crafting Xeero then called Debugger as the final project for the course The course was focused on using the Microsoft XNA Framework a platform with which Eric was familiar Since his freshman year he had been working with the framework to develop games in his spare time By building a series of games as side projects he sought to familiarize himself with as much of the game development process as he could He studied game programming focusing on C and XNA covering graphics physics multi threading database and network programming He leveraged his interest in drawing and character creation to start learning how to create and animate 3D models using Blender a free 3D asset creation program and to draw digitally with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator Eric had built a series of other games over the course of his undergraduate studies His first large project an ambitious online multiplayer collectible card game allowed him to study networking and database Figure 7 Second Advent an online collectible card game programming and learn the foundations of using Blender and Photoshop to creat
89. itch in the circuit to activate 1t The component switches of a circuit can be scattered in various locations to increase the challenge Figure 45 An active hit switch Timed Hit Switches These function similarly to Hit Switches but when linked in a circuit they can be set to a timer Then once one switch has been hit the player has a limited amount of time to activate the remaining switches in the circuit Hitting one switch in the circuit resets the timer on all of the timed hit switches Circuits can be arranged to require the player quickly execute a set of actions or to use their telekinetic leap see Mechanics Offensive Abilities to reach all of the switches in time Buttons Buttons are triggered when Xeero stands on them They can be set to either immediately deactivate when Xeero steps off or to wait until a delay timer runs down giving the player a limited period to perform a task before the switch fails Figure 46 A button Buttons can also be activated by placing a Block on them Doing so eliminates any timed requirements assuming the player can find a block to use Block Switches Figure 47 A block switch waiting for a block These function similarly to buttons but can only be activated by placing a Block on it They can be deactivated immediately or on a timer 3 7 11 Corrupted Objects These special hazards are corrupted versions of other objects the player can use e g s
90. ize of an average adult From these inspirations the art style for Xeero was developed The following sections will describe how these inspirations informed different aspects of the asset creation process 4 3 Modeling Like games in the Tales and Kingdom Hearts series for both character and props models were created with large simple shapes and large proportions For most objects very few intricate details were developed instead focusing on the general form and the silhouettes of the objects Very little sculpting was used for props most objects in the game represent some sort of computer component were composed of mostly hard edges Normal maps are not used in 1b Chenin Xeero to intentionally keep the art minimalistic Figure 85 Large simple shapes in models for Xeero to give as much visual information as possible in larger shapes and to reduce the urge to continue adding finer and finer details to models as development continued 4 4 Color Schemes Inspired from both games in the Tales series and the Tron series and independent artists Xeero uses splashes of saturated bright colors against mostly black and gray environments Early in development a core set of colors was developed most of the predominant colors used in texturing and in particle effects are slight modifications in saturation and brightness of these core colors Figure 86 The fundamental hues used in Xeero In textur
91. jects are related Based on the type of the object and the behaviors it implements see Behaviors these relationships can behave differently Most commonly these links can be used to denote switch receiver relationships to for example allow a Button to be linked to a Gate object allowing the gate to be opened when the player stands on the button Links are directional relationships so a button linked to a gate has different meaning than a gate linked to a button and any WorldObject can be linked to any arbitrary number of other objects allowing complex WorldObject interactions Child WorldObject classes can also restrict the types of objects to which they can be linked disallowing the designer of levels from linking arbitrary objects whose relationships are undefined WorldObjects allow most of their customization through inheritance the program can derive a class from WorldObjects implement specific functionality to run over the lifecycle of the object and add those objects to levels Additionally WorldObjects allow Behaviors Interfaces and Animators to be added to or implemented through them to give the objects preset functionality and to interact with other WorldObjects in different ways Behaviors Behaviors are the most flexible elements that can be added to WorldObjects these discrete objects can entirely define the functionality of an object WorldObjects of different types allow these behaviors to be added to them to giv
92. jump from these and can grab onto their ledges to pull himself up By themselves they offer little challenge but when they are spaced properly or variants are used they can introduce challenge for the player 3 7 2 Small Platforms These are identical to default platforms but smaller in size The player has to more precisely aim their jumps to reach these platforms 3 7 3 Falling Platforms These broken corrupted platforms can t support weight Figure 29 Small platform for very long Whenever the player or any object touches the platform it shakes and falls away These can be used in platforming to force the player to keep moving or introduced in combat to add hotspots the player and enemies should avoid Figure 30 A broken falling platform 3 7 4 Fading Platforms These broken platforms only function some of the time They oscillate in a cycle from translucent to opaque When translucent objects fall or phase right through them When platforming the player must time their jumps correctly to avoid phasing through these Figure 31 A broken semi tangible platform 3 7 5 Walls These are used with one of the variants of the jump mechanic the wall jump The player can leap off of these walls to reach far away or higher platforms If the player idles they will begin to quickly slide off of the wall and eventually fall off Like falling platforms the player has limited time to c
93. low him the mobility to run and jump through cyberspace Xeero himself is an invader in the system he defends injected externally by the player and must defend himself against both malware and the system s security Currently Unnamed Program This program is a companion program to Xeero one also designed to hunt and destroy the Alpha Virus Equipped with similar hood boots and gauntlet and wielding the same digitizing ability as Xeero she shares his drive for the mission for which they were designed Dead set on her mission she is unafraid to make her own path separate from Xeero to hunt their prey Xeero however prone to distraction and hopelessly smitten makes finding her just as important to his mission as finding the Alpha Virus The Alpha Virus This program is the driving force behind the events of the game A virus of unknown origin this creature infects systems wreaking havoc and destroying data A hulking massive creature the virus emits corruption The virus has the ability to corrupt anything it touches leaving behind bugs in programs It can replicate and mutate creating hordes of different malware to thrash the system To the player it is the reason their computer has been razed To the anti virus programs it is their mostly singular reason for existing 3 3 3 Plot The plot of Xeero will be broken into segments each segment will be delivered as part of the content distributed in one episo
94. lows a tutorial message to be activated when the player enters a section of the level rather than by touching a small sphere A Died Here conditional triggers when the player dies while touching the trigger This is used to display messages to the player when they repeatedly fail a certain section of a level Some conditionals can be very specific like Ledge Hang conditionals that are triggered 1f the player is hanging off of any ledge or a Materialize Blocked conditional that is triggered whenever the player tries to materialize an object see Mechanics Digitizing and Materializing when there 1s another object in the way These conditionals like Boolean logic can also be linked together The level designer has access to an And and an Or conditional that can link two conditionals together using the appropriate logic Figure 77 Linking conditionals with and and or conditionals 3 10 4 Loading Tips Some types of information don t fit any of the above categories Some information is miscellaneous not tied to a specific location in a level or is just informative about the world of the game These short usually one sentence pieces of information are given to the player in the loading screens of the game that appear between levels This information can sometimes be dependent on the current progress the player has made in the game the tip you can only block attacks from the front only ap
95. ls had high importance as they were for sounds that still needed to be created and were very common in gameplay such as character movements and primary mechanics Dark green cells had not been made yet but were of low importance Yellow cells were for sounds that had been made already but still needed some minor adjustments Red cells were for sounds that had not been made and still needed to be discussed between Dan and Eric Clear cells were for sounds that were finished polished and had been given Eric s seal of approval Finally blue cells were for sounds that Dan had made but still needed Eric s approval Now Dan was ready to begin the actual designing Since Dan had very little experience with recording he did not have a very large sound library to utilize This gave him few source materials for the different sound effects Since the game s setting is a digital domain most of the sounds would be heavily computer oriented Dan posited that it wouldn t make sense to do much recording as the sounds would come off as too organic This still did not solve the problem of how he would obtain source materials Dan decided to look for most of his source materials from free sound libraries Under Creative Commons these sources files were royalty free and Dan was free to edit and customize the different sounds as he saw fit Using the few sounds Dan had in his own library and the different sounds he found in the online libraries he was
96. ly be commercially released in episodic installments and has been exhibited at PAX East and other local Massachusetts conventions The game is designed for fans of 3D action and platforming games and seeks to evoke a sense of satisfaction of the player through two essential moments of gameplay acquiring new exciting abilities and the experiencing the interplay of different of game mechanics to deftly accomplish a goal In developing Xeero a game engine was developed that implements functionality for required the core of the game rendering physics audio content management particle systems and GUI creation and also contains a level editor Additionally an art style design strategy and audio creation methodology was created for Xeero These foundations can be used to rapidly develop new content for the game The game is broken into six planned parts and this Master s Project is designed to build and refine the first episode For the future the remaining installments need to be developed tested and released Works Cited Acev Review Tales of Symphonia GCN Business in Mayhem 30 July 2012 Web 27 Apr 2015 lt http dowase net blog p 374 gt Bastion Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment 20 Jul 2011 Video game Bayonetta Nintendo 5 Jan 2010 Video game Birkhead Mike Depth vs Breadth in Combat Design An Interactive Visualization Flark Design 25 May 2011 Web lt http www flarkminator com 201 1 05 25 d
97. management This section will discuss every facet of the project management process for Xeero Meetings milestones promotion and any other tasks that were undertaken to move the project along will be dissected and talked about here 7 1 Production Since he came onto the project in the middle of the development process Anthony had to alter his approach slightly compared to his MQP With his senior project Anthony had to budget time for the concept stage Xeero was past that stage by the time he joined and development was well underway As a result Anthony was responsible for guiding the project through the alpha and beta stages Since this was the case more time could be worked into the schedule for festivals and playtesting As one of the goals of this project is to eventually release it for public purchase any extra time that can be spent testing it and putting in front of others is a huge advantage 7 2 Scheduling Team Meetings In order to facilitate the completion of tasks and move the development of Xeero along Anthony scheduled multiple meetings between team members of the course of development see Appendix D for an example Gantt chart detailing work to accomplish over the semester The following three meeting types were scheduled each week 7 2 1 Team In these meetings the team reviewed the tasks that were accomplished over the past week and laid out the tasks that would be undertaken for the upcoming week These meetings laste
98. mies off of ledges These attacks can be further altered through upgrades the player can acquire Through upgrades the player can acquire new attacks but these attacks do not change the mechanism through which the player performs the attacks Instead the attacks are situational and are activated when appropriate For example the player can gain an attack that works as the final strike in their three hit basic combo This attack deals higher damage but only to one enemy while their default attack can hit multiple If the player 1s faced with a single enemy when the player reaches the last strike of the combo the game will observe the number of enemies around and choose the most appropriate attack Most of the attacks described basic attacks block breakers knockbacks can be altered in this way by acquiring upgrades Attacks were designed to be modified this way to keep the number of controls the player needed to learn low allowing the game to reuse a mechanic in different ways while providing a variety of flashy satisfying moves Offensive abilities like others in Xeero can also be used outside of combat The basic attack can be used to trigger switches necessary to solve puzzles The telekinetic leap can be used to quickly close the gap between enemies or objects so the player can use them to quickly hit timed switches The player can also use the leap to cover large gaps the player couldn t otherwise cross Defensive Abilities
99. modeled in Blender For props there s usually more experimentation with forms since the final design object 1s mostly undefined Sculpting Some characters were modeled in Blender first then imported into ZBrush while others were created entirely in ZBrush When models are created exclusively in ZBrush a similar method is employed the modeling sheet is imported and mapped to the appropriate views and the general forms of the model are created After the general forms have been created either through ZBrush or imported from Blender shapes are refined and details added while ensuring that most shapes stay simple and minimalistic as mentioned in the Style 3D section After the model has been shaped and refined they are retopologized to meet the vertex count requirements for the game and are exported to Blender Figure 96 Sculpting the torso for the soldier virus Texturing Figure 97 The UV seams for a prop In Blender seams and UV maps are created and assigned to the imported character or modeled prop For some props extra consideration 1s given for certain effects some props change the color of some of their materials as part of an animation in game Sections of the model that will be used for the same effects are grouped into single textures UV maps are exported and loaded into Photoshop where the colors and shading are defined For most surfaces flat colors with soft shading 1s applied directly to the text
100. mpletion of a puzzle or platforming segment for access Bit Slicers These guillotine like slicers rapidly slice up and down They serve as a platforming challenge the player must time jumps correctly to avoid getting sliced Slicers can also serve as a puzzle element They can slice so quickly it 18 impossible for the player to jump through in time In such cases the player must either obstruct the slicer with a Block or deactivate it with Switches Figure 40 A bit slicer Additionally if there are Enemies nearby the player can lead them through a slicer to quickly dispatch them Motion Sensing Compressors These deadly obstacles immediately crush any object that passes beneath The player can t move under it fast enough to avoid getting crushed but must find a Block to obstruct or a Switch to deactivate it Figure 41 A motion sensing compressor Corruption Walls Figure 42 A corruption wall blocking Xeero s progress These impenetrable obstacles block Xeero s progress They knock back any object that touches it and reflect all attacks They usually appear near malware and the corrupted data must be freed from malware before these can be disabled In combat they also reflect the attacks of enemies allowing the player to use the enemy s attacks against them giving the player another intention in combat see Mechanics Attacking and Defending Turrets Turrets automatically target an
101. n Dan would begin to work on the final versions of the sound effects he could start with the most important tasks first This would include sounds that were more commonly heard throughout gameplay or sounds that needed to be completely different than the original temp sound Issues Filters All Open Myissues Advanced search Issues 1 25 of 103 Title T Status Assignee Created Updated Attackable kad a NEW fa Dan Acito 2015 01 29 2015 02 28 251 ate Engage Sound a NEW A Dan Acito 2015 02 28 24 1 endin in E NEW O Dan Acito 5 02 2015 02 26 24 enu r un a NEW A Dan Acito 2015 02 26 sate al Ent a NEW A Dan Acito 2015 02 26 Sate un a NEW A Dan Acito 2015 02 26 tSilicer a NEW a Dan Acito 2015 02 26 idie a NEW A Dan Acito 2015 02 26 g Archive ld a NEW AO Dan Acito 5 01 2015 02 26 224 BigA e a NEW A Dan Acito 2015 02 26 Archiveld A NEW A Dan Acito 4 11 2015 02 26 A eDe A NEW A Dan Acito 014 11 2015 02 26 irge Ga a NEW AO Dan Acito 2015 02 26 24 nding Mach ind a NE A Dan Acito 2015 02 26 ng Mu A RESOLVED A Dan Acito 01 29 2015 02 25 spider damage a NE A Dan Acito 014 12 2015 02 25 249 Wea n a NEW A Dan Acito 2015 02 12 24 ipping A NEW A Dan Acito 2015 02 09 T dSwitchFai a NEW A Dan Acito 5 01 2015 02 08 Figure 123 Screenshot of Bitbucket Issue Tracker listing tasks that Dan needs to address For many of the polished sounds it was simply a matter of adjusting volumes or editing the soun
102. n completed and were promptly fixed One example that stands out involves some of the doors towards the end of the second level The doors are programmed to activate once a certain number of switches are triggered On rare occasions upon triggering the switches the door geometry would become garbled and the door wouldn t open This particular level had been played through multiple times by Eric Dan and Anthony on many occasions but the issue did not surface until the game was put in the hands of testers With a game as large in scope as Xeero no amount of playtesting 1s ever enough 7 5 Trailers In order to get people interested in Xeero they have to be introduced to it and see it in action beforehand Trailers accomplish just that Anthony was responsible for creating multiple trailers over the course of development to show off at the various festivals and open houses that Xeero was a part of Eric captured gameplay videos using Camtasia and Anthony edited the content together using iMovie At first the early iterations of the trailer were too long Originally they clocked in at around 80 seconds and contained gameplay clips that were either too long too repetitive or dull Professor Moriarty provided feedback on each version of the trailer and it was tightened up and refined into a much more polished video By the time the project was completed the trailer had gone through four iterations based on the feedback and the availability of new
103. n the object has been purged by a Purge Gate Figure 61 Some of the different states of a digitize slot When the slot is empty the player can hold the digitize button to aim at the object they want to digitize The HUD will show a ghost of the object that will be digitized in the appropriate slot When the slot is filled and the materialize button is held the object will glow in the appropriate slot to show which object will be materialized 3 8 5 Combo Meter The combo meter is designed to add a sense of satisfaction and reward to combat see Audience and Experience Goals and to inform the player on helpful strategies in combat When the player successfully hits an enemy or successfully blocks and counters an attack see Mechanics Defensive Abilities the combo meter will increment for every object hit Upon reaching predetermined threshold values the player will gain a multiplier on the hit counter The multiplier increases the amount of BitBucks and Health Data that is Figure 62 The combo counter and current multiplier dropped by Enemies and Turrets when they are defeated The player can up to double the amount of money and health gained from combat Whenever the player is hit and stunned by an attack the counter will tick snap down to the next lowest multiplier value The player doesn t have to maintain a single chain of attacks in a combo to keep ticking the hit counter and the counter will maintain its val
104. n the side that enables the controller to be used as a MIDI keyboard While this was certainly not the most advanced of MIDI controllers it did have a feel that was more similar to that of a piano This would make it much easier for Dan to perform music and was a more comfortable fit Dan simply needed a MIDI cable that could connect this controller to his laptop Not having a cable handy Dan ordered one to be delivered to his apartment When the cable arrived however it did not function properly Dan s computer could not recognize the MIDI device Dan decided to seek Keith Zizza again for help and recommendations Zizza could not diagnose why the cable Dan had obtained did not work but he did offer Dan another solution Zizza loaned Dan a couple of his own MIDI cables as well an external audio interface that would allow Dan to connect his keyboard through his laptop s USB port This would greatly aid in the mixing quality and improve the sound of the music Now that Dan had all the materials he needed to get started he was now ready to begin writing and recording Dan had a lot of ideas for what he wanted to do with the music but he wanted Eric s input first before Dan would actually start the work Dan asked Eric to provide him some sample songs that were of a similar style to what Eric wanted for Xeero Eric gathered a few songs from some of his favorite video games and sent them to Dan These works included composers Yoko Shimomura for h
105. ncoming teaching assistants for WPI Both of them were new to the Worcester area and didn t really know anyone They quickly bonded as they were the only two students who would be working for the IMGD department A few months into our first semester Eric pulled Dan aside and demoed Xeero to him One thing that stood out in this current version of the game was an obvious lack of audio There were no sound effects no audio feedback and no music The game looked and played well but needed a soundtrack That was when Dan made a case for himself to join Eric s project Having grown up a trombone player Dan always was interested in music Throughout high school he had much experience in playing and performing music but he had zero experience in writing it During his undergraduate studies at RIT he enrolled in a lot of music theory courses and took up creating digital music as a hobby At the same time he also took up an interest in game audio He enrolled in classes that focused on recording sounds and manipulating them using digital audio workstations DAWs Despite the experience of creating sound effects and music there were few opportunities to actually use them in a game Xeero was the perfect opportunity to finally put the skills Dan had learned to the test At the same time it would be a chance to gain experience designing for one game specifically instead of just generically Eric agreed that he could use the assistance with the aud
106. ng exciting new abilities In games of this series initially the player is presented with a character with a very minimal action set As the player progresses in these games they are given new abilities as their character levels up These abilities are designed to make combat experiences easier either by giving the player more offensive options through new kinds of physical attacks or special attacks spells or giving the player more options when on the defensive through unlocking an ability that lets the player block dodge or escape enemy combos Late in the game the player is presented with the flashy and vicious combat animations that action games usually give players immediately by having the player work to earn these abilities through leveling up and fighting several encounters it is satisfying for the player when they receive a new flashy ability that makes combat easier Figure 12 Blocking and countering in Bastion C Additionally Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment s Bastion provided inspiration for combat In Bastion the player has access to a variety of equipment which perform different actions on button presses and the player is allowed to swap them out The game allows the player to play offensively or defensively for example the player can block attacks at the right time to counter the attack damaging the attacker Thus in any combat encounter the player has several options for how
107. nment The following sections will describe the setting characters and plot for the game 3 3 1 Setting Figure 14 Overlook of a sample level in Xeero Xeero takes in a single infected computer ostensibly the computer of the player playing the game The world of Xeero is void like a mostly empty space composed of the remnants of a computer system devastated by the Alpha Virus The virus worms its way through programs leaving behind bugs that corrupt data in the system and malware that impede attempts to eliminate bugs The protagonist Xeero navigates through hubs in the game subsections of the system off of which programs branch By repairing the bugs in each program Xeero can fix the corruption in hubs and slowly work to repair the entire system 3 3 2 Characters Xeero Xeero the protagonist of the game 1s the character controlled by the player Xeero is an anti virus program a program created specifically to seek out and destroy the Alpha Virus Xeero is determined and driven to find the virus as dictated by his programming and is silent as he has no mouth However the program isn t immune to distraction and is far from stoic He is outfitted in a red hood and a goggle like terminal through which he can emote with commonly Figure 15 The titular character used text emoticons His right arm is a gauntlet the tool that allows him to digitize aspects of the world around him and his boots al
108. nsional art was created in both Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop in equal measure Illustrator s vector art was used to create most of the icons for in game objects and Photoshop was used for bitmap effects and particles Most fonts used in the game were sourced externally using the open licenses of some fonts like Raph Levein s Inconsolata and Typodermic s Quadrangle Some fonts in the game used effects that required additional processing on the original OpenType or TrueType font files In Microsoft XNA the framework used to create the Xeero s engine see section Technical Development Frameworks and Platforms fonts can be turned into game assets directly from font files or by loading in a texture containing all of the characters used in the font Leveraging this feature Eric used a tool called SpriteFont 2 created by Nubik allowing him to recreate any open license TrueType or OpenType font as an image Then Eric could use Photoshop to process the fonts and add additional effects like borders ESAS OU eS SS a7 tS lt P KAS Coe Shh L WN PO IAS TAILS yA NHabedefa hi a Dare tuvs Figure 107 A font texture generated by Spritefont 2 and modified in Photoshop Additional consideration was also needed for certain types of particle effects Some effects like the firewall that extends below the world and Purge Gates that can stretch to cover an arbitrary area both pictured below required special textures that could be both
109. ny time the player can reach the station marked VM to purchase upgrades for their character see section Objects Vending Machines Additionally there are special rewards marked T1 through T4 that the player can reach through challenging platforming see section Objects Big Archives These give large amounts of money the player can use at the vending machine for upgrades 3 4 5 Boss Fights Boss fights act as the climax for each installment and are the final level the player plays in any hub These are designed to allow the player to use the mechanics abilities and objects the player gained over the course of the hub in a combat situation Each boss fight is related to the theme of the hub Each boss fight level also serves as a connection between hubs after the player defeats the boss they can travel through the level to reach the next or previous hub 3 4 6 Boss Fight 1 Beta Virus Debris Construct Figure 20 A mockup of the first boss in Xeero The boss fight developed for this project for the first installment of Xeero was the construct boss composed of scattered debris given life by the Alpha Virus This boss is designed to test the basic combat maneuvers of the player running jumping dodging blocking basic attacks and leaping see section Mechanics Attacking and Defending The boss also lets the player use their ability to digitize blocks and use properties of the object to defeat the
110. o has no gradients only binary light and However in addition to cel shading Xeero also uses dark more realistic lighting effects For some visual effects that represent the release of energy like digitizing fire effects and explosions colored lights are used These lights use gradients calculated from the angle of the incident light ray and are additively added to the colors generated from cel shading Like games in the Tales series Xeero gives objects a black border Figure 91 Gradient additive lighting used for an explosion effect though Xeero indiscriminately gives all objects a border rather than just characters and props since the props are the environment 4 6 Animation In Xeero any change in the visual state of an object is done through an animation very few objects are allowed to change without doing so smoothly over a period of time All animations involving movement take realistic physics into account whether these objects are directly simulating physics with acceleration velocity and forces or are simply simulating the resultant movement created by these physical phenomena Xeero makes liberal uses of damped springs in the game to allow objects to smoothly snap and potentially bounce into place whether it is camera motion opening and closing gates or floating telekinetic weapons With few exceptions skeletal animation in Xeero is restricted solely to the player character and the malwar
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112. orrectly execute a succession of wall jumps These walls provide variants like platforms small falling Figure 32 A broken wall and fading 3 7 6 Breakpoints These act as checkpoints for the player As long as the player touches the breakpoint the state of the level is automatically saved the position of every object the state of every switch When the player dies the level resets depositing the player back at the breakpoint restoring the level to the same state as when the player touched it These are essential to the tough but forgiving gameplay the design of the game attempts to create see Figure 33 An activated breakpoint section Experience Goals and Audience These are spread liberally throughout the levels to allow the player to frequently save their state 3 7 7 Leap Targets This object is designed to give platforming functionality to a combat ability as discussed in the Motivation section of Mechanics The player can use their telekinetic leap ability to reach this object from far away This is useful for climbing large gaps the player otherwise couldn t cross It like walls requires quick reaction and more precise control from the player to execute successive leaps at these targets Figure 34 A tethered leap target 3 7 8 Digitizable Objects These are objects that allow the player to frequently use Xeero s ability to digitize Different objects have different
113. ository had all of the pertinent information readily available and anything that had to be clarified was done so by Eric or Dan The team worked very well together Meetings were loose and laid back and figuring out logistics for the various showcases for Xeero was effortless Having previous experience producing a student project really helped Anthony in terms of how to go about creating timelines and moving the project along Most importantly he got more experience working in a production role and several pieces of production material he could use in the future in a portfolio for potential employers 9 2 What Went Wrong 8 2 1 Eric Anumba Overall the project suffered from many of the issues that student projects tend to face improper planning and issues defining scope Eric designed the features he wanted to implement within the game but it was quickly apparent that the scope of the game was larger than what the team could reasonably complete Eric and Dan created an approximate monthly schedule early in their collaboration but quickly the project missed milestones and several times over the course of the project the game had to be re scoped to be completed within the time frame of the Master s Project Additionally the plans the team created did not account for the time required to prepare festivals and exhibitions Many times over the project development plans were foregone to prepare for the exhibitions at which Xeero was shown
114. ossible Each sound cue would be filled with a temporary sound insuring that the game was always in a presentable state Later in the project Dan would go through and replace these sounds with more polished and finalized versions Dan s intent was to make each sound as close to perfect as possible with hopes that the sound might not have to be changed later in the project Much of the design process was experimental Since most of the sounds Xeero needed were fictional there weren t many real world objects to use for reference The goal of each of Dan s work sessions was to make something that sounded as artificial as possible but that meant working without a specific sound in mind Often Dan would insert a source file into Reaper and then mess around with the different available plug ins During these sessions Dan often wouldn t have a set sound cue in mind He would just mess around in the workstation until something struck him as interesting and then would look through the asset list to see if 1t would fit anywhere in the game This method encouraged Dan to experiment more with the Reaper interface though it was not the most efficient method of production Occasionally sounds Dan would design would be decent for sound cues that weren t the highest priority While all of the sounds would need to be designed at some point some of the more important cues were being pushed further back into production When experimentation wasn t
115. out a direct analog to a piece of hardware or software like Platforms Blocks and Leap Targets determining how to represent them was a challenge For Blocks and other reusable objects Eric chose a specific type of material The objects have an abstract technological appearance using hard edges dark colors and angular irregular shapes Each digitizable object has an associated color e g blocks are blue bombs are red the color appears on the model and all particle effects using that object are tinted to match Additionally all digitizable objects have prominent tech lines see Style 3D Texturing For other objects a theme quickly emerged one using actual computer hardware to inspire the creation of game objects Figure 116 Different digitizable objects and their colors block are blue bombs are red unstable blocks are a mix between the two Figure 117 Some hardware inspired objects in Xeero Among others on off switches were used to inspire Hit Switches power buttons were the basis for Buttons and PCI E connectors and wires were used to create portals to other programs Other objects were based on icons and symbols used in software Breakpoints which act like checkpoints for players are based on breakpoints which stop the execution of a program wherever the breakpoint is located used in several integrated development environments used by computer programmers Archives and Big Archives which
116. plies after the player has received their weapon and has been taught to block attacks Thus each tip in the game can be triggered to show only after the player has beaten a specific level The tips can also be set to hide themselves after a player has beaten a specific level Through pictorial tutorial equations full screen info pages conditionally triggered tooltips and miscellaneous loading screen tips each type of instruction given to the player 1s dispensed in a way designed to most effectively teach the required information 4 Visual Art Eric was also responsible for the visual art of Xeero The following section describes the visual style developed for the game discusses some of the technology used assets created the motivation for particular styles and the art that inspired the design of the assets 4 1 Introduction The initial direction for the concept and art style of the game was heavily influenced by the creation of the protagonist Xeero was the first element of the game conceptualized and went through a number of iterations In the first iteration of Xeero the computer motif was not established the character could have existed in a different fantasy or sci fi world Despite this the first iteration of Xeero maintained many of the features that would carry over to his final version he retained goggles gauntlet arm and large boots albeit in a different style The next iterations of Xeero soften
117. puPhysics Bullet Physics was chosen Bullet Physics a high performance physics engine satisfied most of the requirements of the project but the engine was originally built to be used with unmanaged C However programmer Andres Traks created BulletSharp a wrapper for the Bullet Physics library Not only was BulletSharp designed to work both with the NET platform but it also contains separate builds to integrate the API with XNA MonoGame and other game development frameworks Bullet Physics was integrated into Xeero s engine using BulletSharp and the source code of Bullet Physics was modified to allow the physics engine to cooperate with the specific requirements of the game Rendering Engine The rendering engine while 1t has undergone several iterations and improvements did not incur as dramatic a redesign as the physics engine did The bulk of rendering time in Xeero is devoted to rendering hundreds of discrete models used in the modular elements that make up GameWorlds so the rendering engine was designed to optimize rendering performance The engine optimizes rendering in two major ways hardware instancing and object culling In any given level the majority of models used in the level are repeated for example the Platform is a standard building block of a level and a level could contain hundreds of them Xeero leverages DirectX 9 s hardware instancing implementation to reduce the overhead of drawing hundreds of discr
118. puter away try Xeero This program will run jump and Digitize its way through your system stomping out malware and bugs Be a hero buy Xeero The game is centered on the titular character Xeero an anti virus program navigating a computer system devastated by the Alpha Virus fighting and defeating malware and literally stomping bugs Figure 1 The world of Xeero The world Xeero inhabits is treated as a single infected computer composed of several separate infected programs represented by the levels the player experiences Each program contains at least one bug for the player to find and eliminate Doing so fixes corruption in other parts of the system allowing Xeero to progress to later levels However to find the bug Xeero must navigate through the waves of malware infecting the programs and the hazards of the system s security e g firewalls and gates Xeero has one essential skill the ability to digitize certain components of the world giving him new functionality and abilities He can digitize blocks to allow him to reach high or far away areas bombs to destroy obstacles and upgrade chips to give him new capabilities Figure 2 Xeero digitizing an object One of the first abilities Xeero acquires is the control over Reaper a telekinetic blade This tool allows him to destroy malware and free their corrupted data The player is given offensive and defensive abilities with Reaper lik
119. r minimal set pieces The player standing on one platform surrounded by only a few others appears to be standing in a void In all of the levels of the first hub backgrounds are black and gray clouds Lining the background like Four 112 Cyberspace by Jusice Von Brand pieces of a massive cylinder are dozens of large glowing slowly rotating hexagons the colors of the hexagon change with the level picking randomly from blue green or yellow As the player approaches bugs in each level the hexagons glow a deep red and spin faster Below depicts the skybox used in Xeero and one of the images that inspired it Figure 113 The skybox in Xeero Figure 114 Cyberspace Move by Joou Chiyanmon The theme of the first hub is debris and the player is allowed to view the damage the Alpha Virus does to the system The hub is made of several shattered islands and an abundance of swirling debris This structure is inspired by the depiction of ruins by independent artists like Ninjatic and Joel Faber of DeviantArt In the image shown below these desolate worlds are composed of individual broken islands t o gt Figure 115 Floating Ruins by Ninjatic 4 10 Objects The following section describes the specific motivations for some of the gameplay objects see Design Objects used in the game The objects in the game are designed to give form to the abstract elements inside of a computer For some objects with
120. r three empty nodes space The player can also double jump so the player must be able to jump 1 75 units up and 5 25 units across The two things that affect these distances are jump velocity which relies entirely on gravity and run speed If we fix a desired run speed like 2 3 units second then the world s gravity becomes a function of the run speed jump height and jump distance Map Coordinates When maps are being built the parser reads each object in Node coordinates where each point x y z refers to a node to address in a 3D grid X Y Z are integers and a node at 0 0 0 is directly adjacent to 1 0 0 Up is defined as lt 0 1 0 gt and the game uses the right hand coordinate system Appendix B Xeero Promotional Poster gt ant el a LU In Sound Engine Playtested File Created Edited Sound List Discussed Appendix C Music Effect Functionality In Game Sound Er gt r gt rzrz f gt gt gt gt re zee ee 7 333333 Z gt r gt r gt gt z gt gt gt gt gt ze yy ZZ ll ol oad gt gt gt err de de de ee e de HEHHE Trrrrrr gt gt gt gt gt gt gt oy eee eee oe gt gt gt gt gt lt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt Te de gt HEE rr gt gt gt y ha a id ew gt gt gt gt gt i gt gt gt gt ERES 22Z gt 77277 H PS gt gt gt gt gt gt
121. rs solely running and jumping and in Portal opening two types of portals and picking up objects These games take their minimal set of actions and iterate finding new unique and interesting ways the mechanic can be applied In platformers the player can have a variety of acrobatics based solely on jumping wall jumping climbing over ledges stomping on enemies In Xeero a game focused on blending different genres of games takes a similar approach It applies a single or related pair of action for each slice of gameplay combat platforming puzzle solving and attempts to find interesting ways each mechanic can be used and reused over the different play styles incorporated into the game In the game for each slice there 1s a pair of associated actions running and jumping platforming digitizing and materializing puzzle solving and attacking and defending combat 3 5 2 Running and Jumping Figure 21 Xeero performing a wall jump Running and jumping is a staple to many games In platformer games the focus of the game is executing properly timed jumps or maneuvers requiring precise control of the character In these types jumping is reapplied in wall jumping or double jumping These mechanics are essential in Xeero with much of the challenge of navigating around the world consisting of properly timed or precisely executed jumps double jumps or wall jumps Running jumping can also be used to solve puzzles
122. s ccooccccococnnccoconoconcnnonanonononconononnnonanononnarononanenoss 146 Appendix Fr Festival SChEGQuie oil a cea 147 Appendix G Xeero Test Protocol 1 Post Play Survey ooonccccconccconcccccnnncconancncnnacinonanenons 148 Appendix H Xeero Test Protocol 2 OverVieW coooccconcccccocononcnconcoconnnnnnanonononnonarononnnnnnnos 150 Testing SUMMARY aw rs aa as 150 e a E seuaueataigcadectenceihecemsateaddadaeum tun E O 150 Appendix Xeero Test Protocol 2 In Game Survey ccseccccsseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesseeeeeeeeeeeens 153 HOT al CP TOO Fala erica a a ado 153 LEIA LOAM DOIN IOMEGA 153 ISU CONG UN Pr ltd 153 SOME PA decease cece nae ia dea ieio 153 o seco siacets cougar staties N N O 154 DOUDlS WISE Pis A AAA AA AA AAA 154 ste o A E E 154 BOJONG TUN CUS scan ano 155 POO MANNA A sebum Mee Sautaaut ra a seg adders ecueememataen 155 Second Galia ais 155 ANNI ALOR S craen a 156 BIOCK COUNTS MING erann a a sia hamustn dain diaeteaseniane 156 MAC Ie ALON RdA tua ias 156 A 157 EMkKSd IE SWICINES usarse 157 A Sites Said E E de maeeaeeeenieeeteans 157 Extra Notes ODSERV ALOIS sra 158 Appendix J Xeero Test Protocol 2 Post Play Questi0nnalTe occooccccconccccnnccncnnacincnnnes 159 1 Introduction This paper will discuss the IMGD Master s Project Xeero a 3D action puzzle platforming game developed for PC The team consists of Eric Anumba Daniel Acito and Anthony Sessa Eric
123. s can be avoided by jumping or dodging and all of their attacks can be countered Soldier Virus Figure 51 A soldier virus These viruses are larger and tougher than their spider counterparts but replicate less frequently They lack a long range attack but their close range attacks have higher damage and a wide range which makes jumping a less viable avoidance strategy and encourages the player to use their blocking or dodging ability to mitigate damage These enemies are also more likely to block dodge or retaliate player attacks The player benefits by putting distance between themselves and these enemies and by making liberal use of blocking and dodging 3 7 13 Reward Objects Mid way through designing and developing Xeero it became clear that the player needed more incentives to perform the tasks the game was asking of them This observation led to the development of reward objects Two primary reward objects were implemented Upgrade Chips discussed previously and BitBucks together with the objects used to facilitate them Most of the rewards are entirely optional for the player Small rewards are easy to obtain while larger rewards require extra challenges for the player to complete BitBucks BitBucks are the currency of Xeero and the basis of the game s reward system They are dropped by enemies when they are defeated but can also be scattered around levels for the player to collect The location of the
124. section will briefly describe some of the levels implemented for this master project 3 4 1 Overview The settings of Xeero are treated as an interconnected world for the player to navigate The entire world of the game is a single computer system composed of the infected programs the player can fix The world is divided into hubs that connect the individual levels the player must navigate 3 4 2 Programs Programs or levels make up the bulk of playing time for the player Within each program there is a bug the player must reach The bug is always located at the end of the level and the player must Figure 16 A bug in a program sequentially move through all of the obstacles of the level to reach the bug Each level is designed to take 30 40 minutes to complete the first time the player attempts it and is designed to be played all at once while the player is allowed to die anywhere in the level to be returned to where they last failed if the player completely exits the game when they resume they will need to start the level from the beginning again Each level in the game must be completed once to make larger progress in the game but the player always has access to the programs and can play any level as many times as they want Figure 17 A pillar of light denotes the location of the bug Each level contains currency which regenerates each time the level starts that the player c
125. ses in combat As with buttons and block switches the player can slam blocks onto target malware crushing them and eliminating large clusters of viruses Blocks are the focus of the first hub of Xeero and Figure 37 Using a block to wedge a gate open are the only digitizable tool of its type implemented for this project Upgrade Chips These are the primary means for the player to acquire new abilities The player can digitize these into Xeero s gauntlet permanently imbuing him with a new ability The abilities granted by chips can vary They can allow the player to digitize a new type of object like Blocks or give the player a new platforming ability like wall jumping see Mechanics Platforming or a new combat ability like the telekinetic leap see Mechanics Figure 38 An upgrade chip Offensive Abilities These can be scattered around levels or purchased from Vending Machines When in a level it is treated as a special one time object once it has been picked up and integrated it will no longer appear in the level 3 7 9 Hazards and Obstacles These objects usually components of system security serve to impede Xeero s progress These offer puzzle solving and platforming challenges for the player Gates Figure 39 A gate which can block Xeero s progress These large gates block Xeero from proceeding until he opens them Gates can only be opened by Switches which may require the co
126. specific section of the level had to be tracked down by matching coordinates to the visual layout of the level Using manual entry text files made both designing and implementing levels a laborious task From the very first prototypes of the game Xeero was designed to use modular levels each level is made up of small pieces common to most levels for more information see Appendix A which describes how space is partitioned for level building and player navigation Levels in Xeero avoid large set pieces or long stretches of custom content that can only be used for a single level Reusing as much content as possible was a top design priority 3 9 2 Programmer Cursor 1 60 6 Objects 5 bd El el t t Soldier Virus Main Area Parameter Menu Object Menu Figure 66 The interface of Programmer with relevant items marked Together these motivations informed the creation of the level editor Programmer This tool allows the modular level elements of the game to be dragged and dropped onto a level allowing them to be quickly mocked up tested and changed Every object in the game can be placed into levels from the menu in the UI marked Object Menu The designer can drag and drop the object from their pane in the menu or can double click to add the object to the level Once the object is in place various parameters can be set on the object like how long Falling Platforms take to fall or which upgrade the player gains from an
127. sules that can be used to quickly sketch out levels These objects can be color coded by the designer and the designer can type in notes that are stored with the object to distinguish their function Mockup objects can be used to sketch out the proportions and platforming challenges of levels without needing to set parameters for every object These can also be used to create the structure of a level for which the required objects haven t yet been created The figure below shows the first hub level mocked up and fully realized Figure 69 A version of Hub 1 using mockup objects Figure 70 Finalized version of Hub 1 3 9 5 Level Sharing Additionally the level editor 1s built into the executable game as a game state that can be triggered from within the game As a result the level editor can construct levels to be saved and used for players of the game but also allows players to create save edit and transmit level files The level editor from its conceptualization was design to be packaged with the game allowing players to use the simple drag and drop controls to construct and share their own levels 3 10 Tutorials and Help As discussed in the Inspirations sections Xeero drew from games like Portal for constructing tutorials for the player Many puzzles of Xeero are designed to teach the player about different controls and the properties of various objects The tutorials for Xeero went through several iterations over t
128. t also allows any arbitrary number of animations to be blending at one time For example 1f the player starts to run the run animation begins to blend from the idle animation But before the animation completely blends the player can press the jump button causing the jump animation to start playing In this case while the animation is blending from idle to running the resultant pose is then blended from that into the jump animation If the player then decides to attack before those animations have finished blending then those resultant poses will be blended into the attack animation The animation system also allowed more complex animation combinations through layers Each layer contains a stack of blend states blending as described above But each layer can also be blended together in a similar manner And these layers can also be triggered to only manipulate certain bones on the model For example the player could be blocking and the blocking animation is playing If the player is in mid air and suddenly lands on the ground a new animation layer is created only for the legs of the player This layer then plays the landing animation while the player s arms are still following the blocking animation Even further the programmer has more precise control over specific animations used in blend states The programmer can determine how the animation loops how far into the animation to start playing and even edit
129. ter finding an interesting sounding instrument he would play around on the keyboard controller to see if he liked how the different notes or beats flowed together Many drum kits had lots of different percussion instruments to choose from A bass drum would be mapped to the low C note on a keyboard and then the keys would progress to the snares cymbals and toms Typically all of the songs Dan wrote followed a standard ABA format Under this arrangement the A was one section of the music the B was a second section typically a bridge and the second A was a variation of the first section This kept the songs very simple but not too repetitive The easiest way for Dan to sample the instruments was to make a short 4 or 8 bar set and then make the section loop seamlessly If the drum beat flowed well this loop could be utilized for most of the song As more layers were added Dan would add some variance to the beat and add some drum fills to the different verse transitions Once a stable drum beat was set the next layer that Dan would work on would be the bass This would set up the chord progression that Dan wanted for the song and help keep a consistent timing for when the melody was to be added Bass was slightly trickier than the drums because the keys were a lot more sensitive to velocity or how fast the key was pressed for stringed instruments wee e A antize o Classic Electric Piano M S Classic
130. ters and props and objects have soft shading baked into the textures of the objects Original character models are created to bridge the gap between the large disproportions used in Western animation and the more realistic proportions used in anime Kingdom Hearts games also use an abundance of particle effects and elaborate character animations in combat In line with the moments of gameplay Xeero attempts to evoke see Experience Goal and Audience Kingdom Hearts games give the player elaborate flashy and vicious attacks the player can execute using a Figure 83 Use of particle effects in Kingdom Hearts II variety of additional particle effects and WastedMeerkat acrobatic animations Xeero also drew inspiration from Bastion The worlds in Bastion are heavily modular each level building itself around the player as the player progresses through it This influenced the modular design of levels os Pe discussed in Level Structure Sets off for the Bastion Where everyone agreed to go in case of trouble Xeero also drew from games like Bastion and games in the Mario series when Figure 84 A level constructing itself in Bastion Northernlion determining the proportions and scale for the player character In games from either series based on their relative proportions to the environments in which they find themselves and the proportion of their body parts protagonist are short roughly half of the s
131. the motion of bone in the animation allowing for example the Xeero to move his arm and head to point at the object he is digitizing even if the object is above or below the preset location of the arm and head in the animation This control created a robust flexible animation system that could be used to control the player enemies and even various props 6 2 5 Lua Scripting The engine also allowed moderate control over the object within levels through Lua scripting A Lua engine is instantiated and can be controlled through commands issued with the console that opens in debug versions of the game s executable The scripting commands allow the creation and destruction of WorldObjects within levels moving objects editing save data and changing game settings all while the game is running 6 2 6 Play Recording The engine also allows for lightweight play session recording The game can capture data as players play the game and save the data into lightweight move data files These files can be loaded into the engine and the play session can be recreated showing the position and actions of the player character and the movement of camera by the player as Xeero moves through levels Rather than saving video frame data the move files store the GameWorld the move file is recording the position and animations of the player character the position of the camera as controlled by the player and the position and states of any relevant o
132. the player s path Reusable objects like blocks and bombs can also be used in combat Blocks which help Xeero cross gaps can also be used as blunt instruments Xeero can materialize blocks into the world above enemies and slam them down to quickly dispatch a large group of enemies Bombs can be hurled into enemies causing them to instantly detonate Figure 23 Using a block in combat to crush an enemy 3 5 4 Attacking and Defending In the design of combat focus was given to depth and intention Mike Birkhead senior game designer for some of the God of War games argues that successful action games focus on depth rather than breadth At any state for the player character there are a relatively few number of moves they can perform but each move leads to a state that allows another few moves to be executed leading deeper and deeper until the character is able to perform a string of moves in succession In action games the focus is on the combo and allowing the player to string together long chains of moves in impressive fashion evoking a sense of satisfaction in the player see Experience Goals and Audience Almost in contradiction Birkhead also makes the arguments for breadth of intention in action games He argues that players have goals and intentions when playing action games the goal is usually simple I want to defeat my opponent Intention is the question of how Intention can be the str
133. the player character walked This allowed for more realistic footstep sounds XACT could also keep track of the distance a player was to a sound source allowing for realistic attenuation This ensured sounds would only play if the player was somewhat near where the sound source was in game as opposed to all of the time Sounds that were supposed to be looped continuously simply needed to have a checkbox flagged telling the engine to repeat the sound over and over again If a sound was too overbearing in the game there were volume modifiers that brought the sound down so that it would blend better with the rest of the sounds The advantage of this was that Dan did not have to reimport a new wav file with a softer volume as the engine could take care of that for him As more and more sounds were added to the engine it became increasingly more difficult to keep track of them This stemmed from an initial lack of a standardized naming convention for audio files Dan tended to name the sounds based on onomatopoeia or what the files sounded like This was a huge mistake as it started to become unclear which files were linked to which sound cues which would make future editing quite difficult Eventually Dan went back and renamed all of his sound files He chose to mirror the names of them to match more closely to the sound cues that they would be linked to Another thing that Dan failed to notice when learning how to use XACT was that there was a wa
134. they attempt to cross the gap How many attempts before they placed the Block below them Facing Malware Did they try to use dodging to avoid Malware After they escape the malware ask them was it immediately obvious that they needed to run Dodging Turrets How many attempts before they passed the turrets Did they use dodging Jumping Ask them how they would rate the difficulty of that section toos 2 To Te Ts eere Hub Did they try going forward or backwards off of the first island If backward ask them why they choose that path Did they go left or right Ask them why Program 1 2 These questions are geared towards gauging the difficulty and pacing of the level Second Gate As the approach the second gate ask them to explain what they are trying to do What is their objective at that point How many attempts did it take them to complete the combat encounter Did they use any of the archives in combat Did they use the block object in combat How would they rate the difficulty of the encounter recs T el 19 Te 2 _ e om How would they rate the length of the encounter ms el 2 PTA ele Falling Platforms How many attempts did they make to cross all of the platforms How difficult would they rate the section rece Tel 3 Tel _Le _ e ome Block Countering How many attempts did they make at countering before they successfully countered Falling Platform Fight
135. tto www ifest usy Seattle WA 5 344 NA 0 LA 6 SASW Gaming Expo Attoo ww Sasw com Austin TX 349395 3117115 1 300 00 Gross price T E3 htlol wenw e3expo comi Los Angeles CA 6 16 15 61815 1 500 ijj 8 TooManyGames htlolfaw toomanygames com Philadelphia PA 6 26 15 6 28 15 NA IndieRegOpen 9 Imaging Cup wie _imaginecup com Competitors Online 911014 7 31 15 PLA Plenty of time 10 PAX Prime http prime paxsite com Seattle WA 8 28 15 89115 110 Moregisiration yel 11 Boston Festival of Indie Games Piipa bastonfig corri Boston MA 312715 MWA 30 00 IMPORTANT 12 GameWidExpo https gamevidexpo corr Atlanta GA 3 28 14 3 30 14 5310 No 2015 dates yel Appendix G Xeero Test Protocol 1 Post Play Survey Playtest Survey IMGD 2900 11 6 14 gt Page lof2 Please do not put your name on this survey What is your favorite genre of games How would you describe Xeero to someone who has never played before How would you assess the difficulty of this game Too Easy E _ Too Difficult Were the instructions presented clearly for how to use the controls and how to interact with objects Did you find any part of the level frustrating If so with what did you struggle Didany gameplay feel awkward or clunky How would you rate the duration of the level Too Short _ _ E Too Long Playtest Survey IMGD 2900 11 6 14 Page 2 of 2 8 Were there any aspects you found satisfying or exciting 9 Did yo
136. u choose to play with a mouse keyboard or a gamepad Do you usually play games with that control type 10 How easy to use was the control type you attempted Were there any controls with which you struggled 11 What was missing from the game Are there any mechanics you would like to see introduced 12 If you could change one thing about the game what would it be 13 Did playing this level make you want to play later levels 14 Would you purchase Xeero to see later levels After completing this survey please navigate to the C Users Public Public Documents Xeero directory and email the files within it to eanumba wpi edu Appendix H Xeero Test Protocol 2 Overview Testing Protocol for Xeero Iteration 3 IMGD 5400 Eric Anumba Anthony Sessa Dan Acito Dan Manzo Caitlin Malone Testing summary These tests are designed for the 3D action puzzle platformer Xeero in order to evaluate the clarity of instruction pacing of levels and overall difficulty These tests are to be conducted using playtesters who are new to the game in order to evaluate their initial reactions and their ability to complete the first few levels The following further details the aspect of the game are to be tested Instruction e How clear are instructions tutorial messages e Can they describe how mechanics work after they have been presented with the instruction e When does it click what would they have liked to have seen when they wer
137. ue while the player is out of combat The hit counter is designed to add a sense of reward to combat the player should feel satisfaction for building up a high value in the hit counter Each successive hit causes a short animation to play on the counter where the number will grow and shake The intensity of the animation increases with the number of hits on the counter and another more intense animation plays whenever the multiplier increases The intensity of the animations is designed to bolster the visceral impact of connecting a strike in combat Additionally the inclusion of the hit counter helps encourage the player to adopt a strategy in combat If a player chooses to focus on building up a higher hit counter the player is then encouraged to avoid getting struck in combat and the player may then try to use their defensive abilities more often 3 8 6 BitBucks Display The BitBucks display shows the player how many BitBucks they currently have in their possession The display uses animations to bolster the reward sensation from collecting BitBucks see Objects Reward Objects When the player picks up BitBucks they is added to a running total in their wallet After a beat the money gained will rapidly tick down flowing into the player s total wallet When the Figure 63 Gaining money running total reaches zero the player s total will pulse and a cha ching sound effect plays The intention is for the player
138. ure see Style 3D Some models use tech lines or glowing lines that appear when certain actions occur in game pictured right Other objects also erode as they become more corrupted becoming Figure 98 A texture map for the compressor soft fragmented pictured left Both types of information where the tech lines appear and Figure 100 Xeero eroded from low health shading is baked into the texture what parts of the model get eroded is defined and encoded within the textures generated Figure 99 Xeero using different tech line colors for a model For most props in the game this completes the model and it is exported and used in game For characters and some props they need to be rigged and skinned so they may be animated Rigging and Skinning At this stage the model has been finalized the geometry and textures have been defined and the models are anticipated to require no or minimal changes Eric uses Blender s rigging tools to define a skeleton for the character or prop Most models use either deform bones bones that directly move vertices on the model or inverse kinematic positioning bones bones that define the end position and joint direction for Figure 101 The skeleton used for the spider virus deform bones that use inverse kinematics Next the character mesh is skinned and the model s vertices are heat mapped to the bones of the skeleton From there Eric
139. w ability called a new subroutine in game a ee ee a msl iS ee al Y rr LAl re D Ga LI AJ a ji lalWal the player is also shown an info page their corrubted i their corrupted detailing the upgrade they have just Figure 76 An info page for an upgrade received 3 10 3 Revamped Tutorial Tooltips Some information presented in the game is location specific not mapped to a specific object details mechanics in a way that is difficult to present in pictures or is not critical enough to block the player from playing a level For this information the original tutorial messages are used but they have been modified to mitigate the issues they originally presented Initially these tooltips could only be activated by the player choosing to touch a small tutorial bubble within a level The activation method for these tooltips have been expanded with a series of objects classified as conditionals Conditionals are objects that can be manipulated in the level editor that act like drag and drop Boolean logic Conditionals can be linked to a tutorial message so for however long the condition is true the message will be displayed for the player There are a variety of different conditionals that can be hooked to tutorials Most directly related to their original activation method is the Touching conditional which is triggered when the player touches an invisible sphere of arbitrary radius This al
140. witches or portals They act like Corruption Walls knocking back any object that touches them and reflecting all attacks The player can t interact with these objects until their corruption has been cleared To do this the player must enter Figure 48 A corrupted object soawner the level of the bug that is corrupting the object and destroy it freeing the object to be used Corrupted objects are used primarily in hub levels helping to tie individual levels into the larger puzzle of the hub Often to reach the final level the boss fight of the hub the player must use the objects scattered around the level These objects may be corrupted requiring the player to clear levels to gain their uses Additionally other rewards may be scattered around the level requiring the use of the corrupted object to obtain them 3 7 12 Enemies These creatures are malware introduced to the system by the Alpha Virus Early in the game the player is given a weapon they can use to fight the creatures and free their corrupted data Combat encounters occur within levels usually in large spaces When the player approaches certain areas of the level these enemies materialize and combat begins In some cases the player must defeat all enemies to progress in others combat is optional Combat encounters platforming and puzzle solving are interspersed throughout each level to give the player an even mix of each Malware in the game can take m
141. would also ensure continuity with all audio in the game and the audio engine Once the music tracks were mastered and rendered Dan would need to add these files to the audio engine A separate sound bank was created specifically for music to stream This would help so that the large files would not take up too much computer memory during gameplay As with the sound effects the music was linked to a sound cue that Eric s code would recognize Once the music had been inserted into the audio engine it was clear that some things would need to be adjusted The biggest and perhaps most noticeable issue was that the tracks were not designed to loop Each song had a unique intro and outro which did not seamlessly connect if the song was to repeat itself This would create a rather jarring jump in the music and could easily break player immersion To make up for this Dan would need to go back into Logic and repurpose the music to better fit into the game The music files would be cut into three different sections an introduction an ending and a mid section This mid section would be arranged so that it would seamlessly loop The introduction would play once at the beginning of the stream and from there the mid section would play through the rest of gameplay The outro would not be heard in game The last step was making sure that all of the sounds and the music blended well together If there were any overlapping frequencies the sound would becom
142. xt we will discuss how Dan came up with the concepts for the music as well as his actual development process Finally we look into how the music was integrated into Xeero and the different obstacles Dan faced along the way In terms of software Dan was most familiar with Logic Pro for music production Having taken several courses during his undergraduate studies relating to music using Logic 1t was easily the best choice Dan did not have Logic at the time but was willing to invest in the software It was the 10th iteration of the program where Dan was most familiar with earlier versions therefore it took Dan several days to become accustomed to the program In terms of how Dan would orchestrate the music the best option was for Dan to make it himself Logic provided a lot of unique virtual instruments many of which would be ideal for the digital domain that Xeero took place in Logic has a feature that mapped Dan s laptop keys to that of a musical keyboard The problem was that this did not quite feel right to Dan and 1t was also incredibly inefficient The musical typing functionality was impractical as 1t overlaid the rest of the audio workstation so often information that Dan would need to look at would be misconstrued Clearly the best option for Dan would be to use an external piece of equipment One thing that Dan had access to was his old keyboard controller for the musical game Rock Band This controller has a MIDI output port o
143. y MIDI controller could do Due to the fact that it wasn t explicitly designed for music production the interface was a little confusing Certain buttons on the controller could control many different things such as octave or velocity but it wasn t clear which button did what unless Dan guessed Since the controller is designed specifically for gameplay the buttons weren t labelled for production resulting in Dan doing a lot of guess work While Dan was still successful in utilizing these tools the extra effort needed to figure out the interface was slightly inefficient 8 2 3 Anthony Sessa As Eric mentioned planning for the festivals that Xeero was showcased at often took priority over development The team was so focused on getting the game in front of the public that priorities often got shifted In addition meetings often had to be scheduled for later at night as Anthony had a typical 9 5 full time job that took up a large amount of time Meetings occasionally had to be conducted via Skype which didn t offer the same advantages that in person meetings would have Anthony also ran into trouble getting the game entered into the PAX booth at first since the booth runners were reluctant to include Xeero two years in a row 8 3 What we would do differently 8 3 1 Eric Anumba From the onset the design and production of the game should follow a more rigid methodology Most of the design of Xeero occurred after much of the core fun
144. y to categorize the sound bank By grouping different sound cues by categories such as the HUD and particle effects it would become much easier to sort through the list of sounds as it became longer Obviously all of these organization methods should have been done from the very beginning so having to stop and reorganize was an unfortunate albeit necessary waste of time Thankfully by setting up the naming standards early on it became a lot easier to keep track of the sounds in the engine the further Dan progressed In order to test the sounds in the game itself Eric gave Dan access to his level editor Using this editor Dan could quickly put together mini levels featuring the sound sources that he needed to look at or listen for It was much quicker to have one small level with an enemy for testing sounds than have to traverse one of Eric s actual levels until Dan found an enemy The advantages of this method was that there was quick turnaround If a sound was supposed to loop and wasn t Dan simply needed to flag the sound cue in XACT If a sound was much too quiet Dan could go back to the engine and increase the volume of the sound In general actual testing sessions were fairly short Dan would listen to any of the new sounds that he had recently added to the engine and see how they meshed with the rest of the environment It quickly became clear whether or not a sound fit well or not Some sounds simply did not work well in their
145. yer to discover the various uses the object provides Hubs act as an area of both respite and challenge for the player Hubs are free of combat encounters and the player 1s able to travel to sections of the hub unimpeded by most hazards Additionally in every hub there is a station for the player to purchase upgrades and improve their character However platforming or puzzle solving is required to reach new programs within the hub Further hubs usually contain multiple special items for the player to collect like one time containers of money that require significant effort to reach 3 4 4 Breakdown of Hub 1 Figure 19 The first hub 1 1 1 2 etc denote levels Hub 1 the hub developed for this project 1s based around the theme debris The hub is composed of dozens of broken islands floating in space with a swirling cloud of debris rushing past the player The ultimate goal for the player is to reach the center of the hub toward the giant portal leading to the boss fight There are eight levels in this hub each 30 40 minutes long Each level in the hub unlocks levels of subsequent numbering in the diagram Program 1 1 unlocks 1 2 and so on However even after the levels have been unlocked the player has to discover how to reach the portal to each level Once all of the programs have been beaten the large portal in the center marked Boss will active allowing the player to fight the boss of the hub At a
146. ypes of objects This area is represented by the NodePositioning enumeration that is present in all WorldObjects NodePositioning can either take on Floor Center or Other Positioning takes up the bottom nine node Floor Positioning is used mostly but isn t restricted to just those to include an obstacle object that is platforms usually go An object using Floor square blocks of a by Platform objects objects we may want placed where An object using Center Positioning takes the remainder of the node Center Positioning is used sporadically by DigitizableObjects Obstacles and Miscellaneous objects Objects using Other don t take up any space on the node and there can be as many of these types of objects on a node as needed Other Positioning is used mostly by objects that don t have anything physical appear in the world like checkpoints finish points or DO Spawn Points or objects that don t use any kind of collision detection like scenery objects Objects using either of these positioning schemes do not need to take up all of their allotted space and this information is not used for collision detection This is solely used for map building so the level parser knows the limit of objects in a node and can throw errors as needed Movement Metrics The player is assumed to be able to jump up at least as high as the top of the Block DO so it can be used to move up a level and can clea

Xeero - Worcester Polytechnic Institute

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