Project Arcade :
Deforestation
Game
Beginning
When we started to create this game, we first had to create characters. These had to be made before we got the official briefing about the project. These characters would be used in a game based upon Galaga.
When the official briefing had been given, it appeared that the game would have to be based upon one of the following three games : Galaga, Speed Racer or Klax. Destiny decided who would have to use which game as basis. Luckily I got Galaga, so I could use my thought up character designs.
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Concept
When I had drawn the tree in my dummy, I got the idea of creating a game with social criticism in it. So I ended up with the idea of deforestation.
Heroes - click to enlarge
Enemies - click to enlarge
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Pitch document
For the Game Design course we had to create a pitch document for this game. I have put two
versions online : a temporary and a final.
The reason why I have put a temporary version online is because at the end of the document,
there are some issues mentioned which have been resolved and don#039;t appear anymore in the
final version. Also, some content has changed.
By comparing these two files, you can get a sense of the game design progress.
Temporary Pitch Document
Pitch Document
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Programming
At the moment I started this project, I was already very familiar with Action Script 3.0. But this assignment had to be executed in Action Script 2.0. This was frustrating ! You had to use other methods of programming than when you are using AS 3.0. Some aspects even worked in a completely different way …
The main character you controlled had to accelerate and decelerate in a more natural way than simply start moving / stop moving. To create a correct formula, I reached out to my physics book and derived a useable formula from it.
Formula protagonist movement - click to enlarge
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Menu
To have a nicer and a bit more elegant game, I added a menu. This was not necessary according to the briefing.
Menu design - click to enlarge
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High scores
I wanted to save the high scores on a server so everyone who played the game would see other peoples high scores. First I wanted to do this with MySql, but I was thinking it was probably overkill to create a database with only 5 records in 1 table. So I thought I could do it using an XML file that would be altered and read when necessary. Unfortunately, the server was secured against writing files towards it … So I dropped this functionality. It could be I will fix this in the future. At this time being, the high scores are only saved as long as you keep the game running.
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Playtesting
I conducted 2 playtest sessions for this project. The first one with family and the second
one with 2 fellow students.
You also can find previous versions of the game here I used at the time of the playtesting
sessions.
Playtest form 1 [pdf]
Playtest game 1
Playtest form 2 [pdf]
Playtest game 2 (Takes a while to load because this version contains an unnecessary mp3 …)
The playtest sessions provided me with useful improvements I had to do to the game.
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