Game Engines Assignment – My Idea!

So I really wanted to use cloth in my Game Engines assignment. Our task is to re-create the basic idea of breakout but with interesting PhysX mechanics added into it. I’ve come up with the following idea to implement cloth into the game:

A piece of cloth is attached to two boxes by its edges like a suspended parachute. The games ball then lands in the centre and then rolls into the centre. When the player holds down the space bar, the two boxes move away from each other, making the cloth pull upwards quickly – the resultant force should propel the sphere up into the air!

The player then has to control the two boxes in order to re-capture the ball and then fire it off in different directions (depending on where it is on the piece of cloth…) in order to destroy the blocks above. Of course the cloth will be un-tearable so that the ball won’t crash through and ruin the game.

I’m going to try and implement this over the next few days depending on how much work I can get done on my dissertation project. I am not sure if the sphere will actually collide correctly with the cloth, so this will be an experiment to see if the idea is actually viable as a method of gameplay.

Today I Have Been Mostly… PhysX

I love using PhysX, OpenGL and C++ so far! Today I messed around with cloth materials in it to see what I could do… and got some really nice stuff out of it.

MyCloth* CreateCloth()
{
 NxClothDesc clothDesc;
 clothDesc.globalPose.t = NxVec3(4,7,0);
 clothDesc.thickness = 0.3;
 clothDesc.flags |= NX_CLF_COLLISION_TWOWAY | NX_CLF_VISUALIZATION | NX_CLF_TEARABLE;
 return (new MyCloth(scene, clothDesc, 8, 6.5, 0.25));
}

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be starting work on my Games Engines assignment using PhysX: I’ve been tasked with creating physics based version of breakout, changing the game to suit a 3D environment, but keeping the basic idea of a ball breaking blocks. I have a couple of designs in mind, but I’ll leave them for another blog post once I have some sketches done!

I really want to use cloth in my game… not sure how I’ll incorporate it, but I love the way it moves and looks. Especially when NX_CLF_TEARABLE is enabled and the entire thing falls apart! The addition of wind and other forces to a cloth object are also really good-looking. Below are some screenshots from my tests earlier today:

Advanced Games Studies Work (Slimy Goodness)

I think from now on I’m going to add slimes to every game I make. They’re just so damn adorable! I’ve also added some sound effects for the background and the slime’s jumping action. The sound effect for the slime is one made by a good friend Louis Bartlett, who is looking to get into sound design – some top notch work!

Next thing to do: Get the player shooting projectiles at the enemies… simple enough!

7 Day Game Challenge 2012 (#7DGC) Roundup

So two weeks ago I organised an event at my university called “THE SEVEN DAY GAMES CHALLENGE” – which was a week-long game jam for anyone in the Lincoln School Of Computing. Below is the article pulled from the Lincoln University Games Blog, have an enjoyable time reading it!

The Seven Day Game Challenge (7DGC), as organised by the Lincoln School Of Computer Science and Sean Oxspring has had a most successful conclusion. To recap, the 7DGC is a week-long short marathon style Game Jam event opened for anyone willing to develop a video-game, either on their own, or in small teams. 7DGC provided a strong, motivating and friendly atmosphere in which developing, presenting and discussing video-games development is fun. The event started on the 2nd November at 04:30PM and finished on the 9th November at 04:30PM. Throughout the week, course related units, workshops and seminars were reorganised to provide 7DGC competitors enough time to work on their submission and to allow them to contact staff members for support and critique.

Over fifteen teams have registered their interest to partake in the event, however, only eight teams have managed to survive the endurance of a week-long game developing rush. On the 9th November, teams gathered in the Lincoln School Of Computer Science Computer Labs and each of them presented their submission. To be eligible to enter the competition, teams had to develop and present a game which includes the themes of Vegetation and Space. During the presentations, a panel of judges evaluated the games on their fun-factor, their juiciness, their originality, and their use of the theme.

The judges were quite dazzled by the range, quality and originality of the presented games. Clearly participants deeply thought about incorporating the themes in varied and fun ways. There were games about bees conquering flower fields in an RTS style, mutant vegetables trying to help the moon landing in the 60′s, Space travelling jump and runs, farming simulators, carrot and cabbage collecting shooters, ant sized scientists trying to escape to the moon through resource gathering, multiplayer co-op space potatoes collecting shooters and mind controlled mash potato exploring games. Furthermore, event-organiser Sean Oxspring presented his submission, which he classified as an arts-ish experience, a parody of what is believed to be an overly pretentious ludo-logical experience.

It was most arduous labour for the judges to decide on a winner as all submissions were most astonishing considering the short amount of time that students had to develop their titles. However, after some intense debates two submissions were chosen. Many congratulations go to:

7DGC Main Winner:
Team AD-JAM – Alex Saye, Mike Thompson, Jamie Bloor, Adam Cane, Dave Ridout – for “Buzz Kill”.

7DGC Honorary Mention:
Team Nigel Sapphire – Kieran Hicks – for SHKAMFSVATG.

If you want to play the games that were developed for free, click here!

Advanced Games Studies Work (22/11/2017)

I’ve been added to a new group for advanced games studies class at university… unfortunately they haven’t really had very much luck in the way of programmers since the start of this semester: so there was a distinct lack of code or game-play implemented.

This week I’ve spent my time re-coding the current game engine that the team had in place, the whole game was controlled by one script – so the object-oriented programmer in me was screaming like a mad-man. It didn’t take to long to re-code what there was there, and now it all works properly. Keys have also been added to the game so the player cannot continue until they unlock doors. (I also stuck a few place-holder textures in and added a black fog and some ambient lighting to make the game look far less pre-alpha than it did last week.)

It’s looking a great deal more promising as a project now, the team has one more week on this before the presentation on the third of December. Next week I plan to implement some form of enemy and a fighting mechanic (probably a projectile based one).

I’m writing a novel…

I’m currently working on my first novel! I’ve never really done anything like this before, so its definitely an interesting little hobby to work on. The novel is based on an idea myself and my friends came up with a few years ago. I started on Saturday night and I’ve already reached 15,000 words so things are going well. I’m giving you all the first chapter to read here as a taster, I hope you like it!

CHAPTER 1 – NOTHING EVER HAPPENS HERE

Never was there more a quaint and idyllic village than that of Smedlington. Each cobbled road was a picture of rural Britain, dry-stone walls and perfectly trimmed hedges bordered beautifully crafted oak and white brick houses. It was the kind of village where everyone read the Telegraph, didn’t like foreigners and avoided moving more than a few miles from their homes.

The faint smells of brewing hops daintily drifted down the road from the often frequented public house: The Cockerel In Cider. Across from this magnificent pub, a fish and chip shop proudly displayed its signage. As per usual, the town was silent during the early afternoon, the stillness only broken by the occasional bird or squirrel.

In the centre of the village a church dominated the skyline, surrounded by trees and attractive flower-beds. The graveyard was carefully maintained, not a stone out of place. Community had always been an important part of the village – tombola and fairs were common in the day-to-day lives of the inhabitants.

From the top of the church you could see a wonderful view of the surrounding countryside – the thick and ominous forests and huge sprawling fields; filled with all types of useful crops and animals. On the horizon, standing before the hills and peaks of middle-England stood a great mansion, a home so grand it’s huge driveway sliced across the forest directly towards the village it was situated by.

Smedlington Manor was a monument to a more opulent age. Sprawling gardens stretched out like tremendous fingers pushing back the woodland around them. The manor was in a state of disrepair: the roof work was in a poor condition, some of the masonry had either collapsed or worn away and several windows were cracked in places. Some bad investments coupled with a double-dip recession had meant cut-backs to the manor’s upkeep budget.

The current owner of the mansion was one Reginald Percival Persimmon Dulot III. Reginald was a tall, pale man in his early forties. His thick, brown hair was almost in a constant curly mess – slightly greying in areas around the ears and the back. His ice-blue eyes were framed with wrinkles and slightly dark bags from a lack of sleep. His nose was unmistakably large like those of his predecessors, underneath this protruding snout was a large and carefully trimmed moustache.

Reginald sat down on a large leather sofa in the mansions second study, he looked out of the huge window across the gardens towards one of the man-made lakes that dotted the area. He reached over to a nearby oak desk and filled up a glass from a scotch decanter, each movement of Reginald’s hands were well placed and deliberate, as if it had been done a thousand times before… which it had. He lifted the glass to his lips and took a drink from medicinal-tasting whisky, swallowed and then let out a long drawn out sigh.

From behind, another man silently walked across the room, lifting the needle on a large gramophone and setting a record into place. This man was wearing a tuxedo jacket and appeared to be older than Reginald, his straight greying hair and wrinkles betraying years of long service and stress. Dutifully, the man placed the play needle into position, the sounds of Chopin filled the air, Reginald continued to stare out of the window.

Reginald looked across at the scotch decanter, it was almost completely drained. He frowned with a look of desperation in his eyes.
“Butler, we’re running out of scotch.”

The other man turned to look at Reginald whilst cleaning a dusty shelf with a cloth. He looked across at the decanter and then across at the alcohol cabinet, which was practically full to the brim with gins, whiskeys and wines. He rolled his eyes and then continued to dust the shelves.

“I’ll order some tomorrow, sir.” said the man, his voice aching with a drab and dreary monotone.

Reginald went back to sipping from the glass, occasionally swilling the glass and watching the potent liquid slosh around. This had become the norm over the last five years: wake-up, drink then sleep. It had actually become irritating to leave the house for those boring village fairs, it was merely a formality now anyway, Reginald didn’t care much for the village folk, they were beneath him. He closed his eyes and recounted the time he had to spend several hours trapped inside the public house with the locals, the thought of eating ‘Fish and Chips’ again made him gag slightly. Butler walked up behind him calmly and leaned down to his eye level.

“Sir, Master Tippy has awoken, he is on his way to see you.” droned Butler.

“Ah, thank you Butler.” replied Reginald, who placed his glass on the desk and stood up.

“I shall now go to prepare your afternoon tea.” Butler stated, turning to leave the room.

Reginald nodded and feigned a small smile. From off in the distance a gunshot echoed from the forest, Reginald looked out the window and saw a flock of birds escaping into the sky. Reginald squinted and looked concerned.

“Is there a hunt scheduled for today Butler?” asked Reginald.

“Not that I know of Sir, but I do believe that the nearby farm has been having some fox trouble.”

“I see,” murmured Reginald, “Very well! Can you please remind me to send them a letter reminding them that the forest is not their farm.”

“Yes Sir,” Butler stated, as he slipped out of the room.

Reginald turned his back to the window, watching the door patiently. From down the corridor he could hear the soft patter of hurried footsteps on bulky, crimson carpet. Reginald lifted his scotch glass from the desk and downed the rest of its contents.

The door burst open, knocking over several small ornaments on the shelves. A confused looking gentleman
in silk pyjamas blundered into the room, looked around and then fell backwards into an armchair.

“Morning Reginald!” the man yelled, his face saturated with a beaming grin.

“Morning Tippy, how are you this fine afternoon.” asked Reginald.

“Lovely!” replied Tippy, who proceeded to rock back and forth with child-like glee. Tippy was a few years younger than Reginald, although if you didn’t know you would swear they were twins. His hair was dark-blonde and just as scruffy. His chestnut coloured eyes glinted with a spark of slight insanity.

Reginald smiled, Tippy was his best friend after all. The two had been living together for almost five years ever since Tippingdale Manor was burnt down in a freak accident. Tippy had lost a great deal of his money from his addiction to certain… uncouth substances and a spout of unlucky gambling on horse races. The lack of funds made it impossible for him to afford to have Tippingdale rebuilt, but he could still live comfortably. Reginald was perfectly happy with having Tippy stay at his mansion, after all: he would have probably died of boredom without him there.

Tippy rocked back and forth on the spot, letting out adorable squeaks from the leather seating. “So what are we doing today Reginald?” he asked in a high-pitched voice, the silver spoon in his mouth singing out loudly.

Reginald furrowed his brow and closed his eyes, “I’m not entirely sure Tippy, we’re not scheduled for a hunt until tomorrow, I do believe today is a lazy day.”

“A lazy day you say?” replied Tippy in a somewhat disappointed voice.

Reginald thought for a moment about things to do, Tippy stared at him waiting for a response – his expression similar to that of a dog waiting for its master to throw a bone.

Tippy’s attention slowly drifted away from Reginald’s pacing, he followed several dust particles as they drifted across the room into the bright outside light of the grand window. He narrowed his eyes as they became used to the light – then he saw something.

“Reginald?” asked Tippy quietly.

“Not now Tippy, I’m trying to think of something to do.” answered Reginald briskly.

“Reginald… are the gardeners meant to be on today?” Tippy replied, his voice sounded concerned.

“Of course not Tippy, we won’t need the gardeners in for a good week and a half.” said Reginald, who was now leafing quickly through a dusty book entitled “Things to do in Smedlington Volume 1”.

Tippy stood up and walked towards the window – peering out down onto the sprawling lawn. “Then why is someone out there on the west green?”

“What?” asked Reginald, turning around and tentatively walking towards the window.

Tippy was right, there was a man standing on the lawn.

It looks like things are about to get interesting for Reginald and Tippy! If you liked reading this, drop me a tweet, comment or email!