CIS 350 – I

Game Programming

Instructor: Rolf Lakaemper

Part II:

Game Genres

Genres

ADVENTURES

Genres

• Adventure Games cast the player as the protagonist of a story in which the player participates

• Solving of puzzles, finding various artifacts

• Sub-genres:• Textbased• Graphical• Action

Genres

Textbased Adventures:

• First adventures

• Typical use of verb-noun phraser

• Earliest titles: ‘Hunt the Wumpus’ (G. Yob, 1972, Basic Game) and ‘Adventure’ (W. Crowther, 1972)

Genres

‘Hunt the Wumpus’

Essentially, you're wandering through a network of numbered caves, looking for the Wumpus; when it's nearby, you'll smell it, and you can try to kill it by shooting into one of the caves that's near you. If you wander into the same cave as the Wumpus, you die. Other hazards include bats--which pick you up and dump you somewhere else--and pits, which kill you.

source code !

Genres

…or ZORK (1981)

Genres

Hybrid Text / Graphic

The Hobbit (1982)

spectrum emulator

Genres

Graphic Adventure

• Graphical (point and click) Interface

• Introduced by Sierra Online’s King’s Quest 1984

• Lucas Arts: Maniac Mansion 1987

Genres

King’s Quest I (by Roberta Williams)

Genres

Action Adventure

• The only commercially successfully remaining action genre

• Reflex Based as well as puzzle solving

• Most prominent: The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo, 1986 (US: 1987 on NES)

Genres

Legend of Zelda, NES 1987

Genres

Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Game Cube 2004

Genres

Educational Games

• Attempt to teach the user using the game as a vehicle

• Mostly target young users• Growing market !• …can also teach programming on a very

high though entertaining level, e.g. ‘Robot Wars’

• Best known: ‘Carmen Sandiego’

Genres

Example: ‘Alpha Beth’ 1985PLAY

Genres

Fighting (Beat’em Up)• Emphasize on one-on-one combat between

(two) players• Usually focus on martial arts• Usually as dramatic and physically

impossible as comical• Sophisticated interfaces !• Early title: ‘Way of the exploding fist’,

Melbourne House 1985 PLAY!

Genres

‘Way of the exploding fist’, Melbourne House 1985, Sinclair Spectrum

Version

Genres

‘Mortal Combat: Deadly Alliance’, Midway,2002, XBOX

Genres

First Person Shooter• Emphasize shooting and combat from a

specific perspective, most of them place player behind hand/weapon

• Tend to be scaringly violent

• 3D effect is usually enhanced by 3D-sound

• Most prominent: DOOM, Quake, HALO

• First title: …

Genres

SPASIM, 1974• Space Simulation• 3D 32 person network multiplayer game• Written for Champaign Urbana University

of Illinois PLATO network• The PLATO system had hundreds of

plasma panel terminals (512*512 graphics displays) around the US with 1200bps connections into a CDC Cyber 6400 mainframe

Genres

Battlezone, ATARI, 1980

Genres

Rescue on FractalusActivision,1986, Spectrum Version

Genres

DOOMId software,1993

Genres

HALOXbox,Bungie Studios,2001

Genres

• FPS introduced a new technique to game programming: 3D engines, independent from game rules, logic and final graphics are utilized for multiple games

• FPS are the most controversive games, due to their realism and violence, e.g. the Columbine Highschool Shooting was put in connection with them

• The combination of AI, real time graphics, physical modelling makes them the most sophisticated programs the gaming area

Genres

MMOGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Games)

• Subscription based virtual worlds for thousands of players to interact together

• Titles: Ultima Online, Everquest etc.

Genres

Everquest

Genres

Platform Games

• Probably the best known genre, ‘the’ computer game

• Running, jumping etc. on 2D or 3D platform• ‘Side-scrollers’, usually (2d) from a side

perspective.• Most prominent: Mario Brothers, Donkey

Kong, Lode Runner, Sonic, …

Genres

Jumpman1983, ATARI 400

Genres

Donkey KongNintendo, 1981

Genres

Mario BrosNintendo, 1983

Genres

Super Mario BrosNintendo, 1985

Genres

Mission ElevatorMicro Partner/Magic Bytes 1986

Genres

Mission Elevator

(Graphics by Bettina Wiedner)

Genres

Donkey Kong Country 2Game Cube, 2003

Genres

Super Mario SunshineNintendo Game Cube, 2002

Genres

PUZZLE Games

• Require the gamer to solve logic puzzles or navigate complex locations such as mazes.

• Genre crosses frequently with adventure and educational games

• Titles: Tetris, Sokoban, Boulderdash,…

Genres

Tetris1985 Alexey Pazhitnov, Vadim Gerasimov

Genres

Boulderdash1987 Databyte

Genres

RACING GAMES• Place player in the driver seat of vehicle

• Emerging in early 80s

• Extremely popular

• Various input devices

• Titles: OutRun, MarioKart,…

Genres

OutRunSEGA, 1986

Genres

MarioKart Double DashNintendo, 2004

Genres

Role Playing• Player acts as adventurer who specializes

in certain skills

• Emerged from board (pencil&paper) role playing games

• Usually science fiction or fantasy setting

• Titles: Ultima, Diablo, …

Genres

ULTIMA 1• 1980• Written in basic• 3000 lines of code• Memory takes less than one texture in

current version…

Genres

ULTIMA 1, 1980

Genres

ULTIMA 9, 1999

Genres

Fixed Shooters

• The classic 2D shooters

• Space Invaders, Galaga, R-Type, …

Genres

Space Invaders

Galaga

Genres

Simulation

• Aim to simulate a specific activity (e.g. flying an airplane / running a company) as realistically as possible

• Usually time consuming to play, huge manuals etc.

• Titles: Little Comp. People, MS Flight Sim., The Sims, Medieval,Warcraft,…

• The SIMS is the most popular game ever !

Genres

Little Computer PeopleActivision, 1985, C64

Genres

The SIMSBill Wright,Maxis, 2000

Genres

Sports

Well, sports simulation, of course.

Genres

Winter GamesEPYX, 1983,C64

Genres

Strategy

• Focus on careful planning and skillful resource management

• Thinking games• Often turn based• Usually war strategy• Titles: M.U.L.E., Civilization, War Craft,…

Genres

M.U.L.EEA, 1983

Genres

Civilization 1Sid Meier, Microprose,1991, DOS

Genres

WarCraft IIIBlizzard, 2003, PC

Genres

Traditional

• Board Games

• Card Games

• ETC

Genres

Requirements of Genres:Hardware

• Computational power• Graphical abilities (color, resolution)• Graphic. comp. Power (Co-processing

graphic cards)• Memory• Sound• Input / output devices

Genres

Software

• AI

• Physical Modelling

• Sophisticated Data Structures

Genres

Design

• Story

• Playability

• User Interface

• Realism

Genres

Comp. power

Graphic. abilities

Graphic. Comp. power

Memory

Sound

Special I/O devices

AI

Physical Modelling

Sophisticated Data Structures

Story

User Interface

Realism

X X X X X X X X

X X X X X X X X X X X

X X X X X X

X X X X X X

X X X X X X

X X X X

X X X X X X X ?

X X X X X

X X X X X X X ?

X X X X X

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

X X X X X X

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X ?PLAYABILITY

AD

T

AD

G

AD

A

Edu

FIGHT

FPS

MMOG

PLATF

PUZZLE

RACING

RPG

FXDSH

SIM

SPORTS

STRAT

TRAD

Genres

Which genre is the easiest to design and

program ?

Game Industry

Some numbers out of the world

of the

Game Industry(source: www.gamasutra.com)

Game Industry

Mission Elevator

• Publisher: Magic Bytes• Number of full-time developers: 0• Number of part-time developers: 3• Length of development: 14 months• Release date: 1985 • Target platform: Amstrad CPC, C64• Development hardware: Amstrad CPC, C64• Development software used: Paper and Pencil,

selfmade assembling help, some BASIC tools• Project size: 48kB• Budget: 10.000$ (for conversion to diff.

Systems)

Game Industry

Grand Monster Slam

• Publisher: Magic Bytes/Rainbow Arts• Number of full-time developers: 6• Number of part-time developers: 1• Length of development: 8 months• Release date: 1989• Target platform: AMIGA, ATARI ST, C64• Development hardware: proprietary: ATARI ST

connected to AMIGA• Development software used: Graphic Tools,

SEKA Assembler• Project size: 4MB• Budget: 100.000$

Game Industry

SPLINTER CELL

• Publisher: Ubi Soft• Number of full-time developers: 76• Number of contractors:18• Length of development: 5 months• Release date: March 28, 2003 • Target platform: PlayStation 2• Development hardware: PS2 dev tools, PCs avg.• Athlon dual 1800+• Development software used: Unreal Warfare,

Code Warrior, 3D Max, Photoshop, Ubi's animation tools, Optpix, Microsoft Visual SourceSafe

• Project size: 3.47GB• Budget: ?

Game Industry

STAR WARS: Rogue Leader

• Publisher: Lucas Arts Entertainment• Number of full-time developers: 30• Number of contractors: 2• Estimated budget: $3.5 million• Length of development: 9 months• Release date: November 8, 2001• Platform: Nintendo Gamecube• Development hardware used: GDEV & 1GHz PC,

running Windows 2000• Development software used: SN Systems for

Gamecube, Slickedit, Maya• Notable technologies: MusyX 2.0• Project size: 14.2MB of source in 859 files, in-

game source data 6.4GB in 10,075 files

DIABLO 2

• Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment• Full-Time Developers: 40• Length of Development: 3 years.• Release Date: June 28, 2000.• Platforms: PC and Macintosh.• Hardware Used: Typical programmer

workstation: 500 MHz Pentium II running Windows NT with 128MB RAM and 9GB hard drive. Typical artist workstation: dual 500 MHz Pentium IIs running Windows NT with 256MB RAM and 14GB hard drive.

• Software Used: 3D Studio Max, Photoshop, Microsoft Developer Studio/Visual Studio and SourceSafe

Game Industry

Game Industry

DIABLO 2

From “Diablo2: what went wrong”:(http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20001025/schaefer_03.htm)

“We developed the original Diablo with almost no proprietary tools at all. We cut out all the background tiles by hand and used commercial software to process the character art. Spells and monsters were balanced by verbal estimates ("Hey, lets make the lightning about ten percent weaker."). Diablo II's vastly increased scale required much better tools, and we made some, but not enough. “

Game Industry

What’s in for

YOU ?

Game Industry

Salary Survey 2003(from GAME DEVELOPER Magazine)

websource:http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20040211/olsen_01.shtml

• Questioning among GAME DEVELOPER subscribers

• About 2750 responses used for survey

• Excluded: <10.000$, >300.000$

Game Industry

Programming

Game Industry

Art & Animation

Game Industry

Game Design