[APP] Geo Wars - A location based game for the HD2

[PORTED TO 3D]

Major tasks done:
3D view, world, perspective
3D primitives
Textures
Lighting
Materials
accelerometer mapped to camera

Major tasks to be done:

- Ray tracing (for picking)
- BoundingBox collision
- Rework game logic (pratically done, just need to add Z axis to the game logic)
- Include soldiers
- Include boats
- Improve performance
- Enhance graphics.
- Use compass to rotate the camera/player's position



Hi

I'm a master degree student, whose final project is to develop a location based mobile game prototype. Although the development is nearly complete, there is some tweaking and adjustments still to be done. As such, and being a member of this community for some time now, I thought i should not only seek your help, but also share this creation of mine. I will describe what it is, how does it work, what bugs does it have (still some unfortunatly) and finally, what i need from you guys.


Description


The game is basically a Tower Wars kind of game. You are a general who was given the task to hold you sector from the invading enemy forces until backup arrives. You're only hope is the experimental technology the government gave you that allows you to instantly deploy machine guns and artillery nests, completly unmaned and automatic. Although these do cost a lot of money, so you have to prove your worth by holding your position and defeating enemy forces.


Game Mechanics

The battlefield is your very own map (yes, from google maps static api xD). Enemies will come from sea air and land, but all of them with some restrictions to their movement, firepower, range, etc. For an instance, while an airplane may move around firing at anything from anywhere, a soldier or a tank must move around the streets, attempting to close in on their target. Boats will only appear if there is water on the map (kinda makes sense). Each enemy unit will try to prioritize its targets, and they have somewhat different AIs. For an instance, a Tank will keep attacking towers while moving in closer to the player's position. Once he gets there it will start blasting the player away. A soldier, however, will always try to attack towers first and only after there are no towers left will he attack the player.

The player can do some actions as well. He earns money for each second he remains alive, for each money filled bag he gets (by moving over them), and for each unit destroyed (each unit provides different bonus money). With this money he can build towers which will do their best to fend of the enemy forces. Each tower works differently, and has different projectily speeds, fire rates, life, costs, damage per hit and projectile type (for an instance, the rocket tower fires homming missiles that never miss its target, unless something gets in the way) The player can (and should also) move around the map (by walking), attempting to draw enemies (such as tanks) into sittuations where those units might get caught in cross fire (be aware that friendly fire works both ways).

So, the player can build towers by clicking on those lettered buttons (each creates a different tower, who'd have guessed?) and by clicking again on an clear area (this area must not have roads or any type of game units in it).

Oh, and in "Settings" you can select the quick game's difficulty, and if you want weather or not to influence the game. Clear weather provides bonus speed and range for all units and projectiles, while rainny or cloudy weather provide penalties to the same.

Know Issues

Since this IS a WIP, there are some (if not ALOT) of issues, them being:

Common issues:

- Weather takes a long time to load, up to a minute (the weather webservice isn't the most accurate or fast around i guess). ALL LOCATION, MAP, AND WEATHER DATA ARE DOWNLOADED IN THE MAIN MENU. YOU CANNOT START THE GAME WHILE THIS DATA HASN'T BEEN DOWNLOADED YET. Just press "Quick Game" from time to time. The button will only work when this data is ready.

- You cannot restart a game. Actually, you have to quit the application (and sometimes even reset your device) in order to start a new "Quick Game".

- Load Game is working, but not for you guys yet. The idea behind of it is to play the game in locations where you physically cant. Basically you'd have to register an account in a site i've created for this purpose (the site was a requirement for this thesis), create the game's there, and then login in the "load game" section and select one of the game's you had created. Works for me in the lab here, but i haven't deployed the website, the DB nor the webservice for this yet.


- Aircrafts can be buggy. And by buggy i mean that sometimes their own rockets blow themselves up. Yes it is funny when you read it down here, but it's not intended.

- Sometimes a ground unit may get out of the road. Completly. Not sure why though.

- The game may be somewhat unplayable in one place, and to easy in another. That's location based games for ya.

- (Feel free to report some extra ones, i'll be sure to add them)

3D

- Soldiers not present yet due to them slowing down the game a lot (geometry too complex, gotta dumb it up a bit)

- Tanks WILL most certainly move away from the streets. This is due to the different coordinate systems used by dx3D and dx sprites.

- Game will run poorly, not due to the complex AI, but due to the poor graphic driver support. Will try to improve.

- You can only position towers when viewing from the top view. Otherwise it is really difficult as ray tracing wasn't implemented yet.

- Player's position may also be erratic due to the different coordinate system.
Requests

Well, this is the part where you guys can help. By now you should notice that while the game works it does so barely. The graphics are cheesy (i'm the one to blame) and the gameplay is IMBA sometimes. So, here's what i need from you fellas.

TRY IT.

No seriously, please do try it.And submit your oppinions about how the game should be tweaked to be more challenging, and what do you think are the issues of Location Based Games themselves. To sum it up i need:

Opinions - on the game, and on location games

Tweak suggestions - the game should be balanced and should make the player move around, but not to tire him or actually force him to be playable. However, players that move around should be rewarded somehow.

Graphic Enhancements - Yeah, game sucks. I need decent sprites. If you got some nice ones that may replace what i've got, go ahead show them ^^. You will be credited. I was thinking of turning the game more GTX like (the main menus are ugly cause i just made them in a rush)


Requirements

You need to have either Chainfire graphics patch or ATI 3D drivers. Why? Because HTC didn't include Direct3D mobile drivers d-_-b'...

If you are reaaaaaally lazy and don't want to get outta the couch, please download FakeGPS, so you can play the game ^^. You can test it easily that way.

Gameplay Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crnOVldfBgM -- A bit (like, a lot) outdated, but shows off a bit of the mechanics.

Here's a screenshot for you fellas:

2D game:




3D game version:









Download Zip

2D version
http://feupload.fe.up.pt/get/bBLS4QIrwzz0gRW

3D version

http://feupload.fe.up.pt/get/yukIzyB9JM76cdc


--You can extract and place this anywhere on the phone. Just be sure the *.exe and the Textures and Sound folders are in the same folder.

Suggestions

- Multiplayer mode (possibly a 1 on 1 kind of game) (this, if it is meant to be implemented, will take a while. Prolly will only look at it during summer)
- Put the price on the buttons for the bunkers. (done)
- When building a bunker, move around the bunker that is to be build while the finger is on the screen. Deploy tower on mouse up. (done, i guess)
- Optionally choose where to play a quick game (giving it google map like addresses, such as 1242 Imaginary Av, Portugal) (done)
- Change the zoom for the map (in order to solve the tower placement issue and the rythm of how fast the player moves on the map) (done, but perhaps it could be done more elegantly)
- Nice looking menus (comming up ^^)

Suggestions and possible improvements will be placed here.

Oh, and can a mod put the links in this post correctly, just to make it easier for those that wish to see/download it?

Everybody, feel free to post screenshots as well.

Thanks for comming

Thanks for comming ^^.

I understand that not everybody is crazy about videogames. And i also understand that many people aren't into Location Based Gaming. Nevertheless i thank you for taking the time to read and see my project. I hope others will find it as interesting as you !

I am now finishing the writing of my thesis! In a month or so it should be done, although i wish to carry on with the development of this project.

Kudos, and once again, thanks for showing up

MAMeingast said:

First of all: I LOVE THIS CONCEPT!

Second: I will definitely test this game as soon as I get around to it and provide you with some feedback.

Third: Do you have any plans to implement a multiplayer version? It would be too cool if you could work together with others building defenses, supporting each other...

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Greetings ^^

Re First: Glad you love it ^^. Really. This concept is somewhat new and not many people like location based games. I would like to know what is your oppinion about location based games in general and why aren't they that much played/developed.

Re Sec : Take your time, i am open to all your doubts and suggestions ^^.

Re Third: You know, you aren't the first to make that suggestion? I'm really considering looking into it, although i thought it would be easier to create a multiplayer where you could opt to spend money buying defensive structures or buying offensive units to attack your foe. That way you could play against anybody anywhere. What do you think?

Shum97 said:

Looks interesting, will test it when i finish work

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Hoping to hear from you mate ! Glad it caught your interest. Will probably post another video (showing the website and the load game feature). I need to film the game working as well, when the player is moving and the likes.

Hojlind said:

Here are my observations after a couple of games:

First of all as you kind of mentioned, if you press the exit button in the main menu, you will not be able to start the game itself until a softreset have been made.

Secondly the game crashes for me, and gives me an error after about half a minute of playtime.

Third, in the place where i live it is hard to place bunkers as they are too big (even though the form of the bunker would fit fine ).

I would recommend you to make the bunkers a bit smaller.

Recommendations:
Put a price on the buttons for the bunkers so that i know how much they cost.

When i have to place the towers let is be so that when i press a button and then press somewhere on the map, and i keep it pressed, i will be able to more precisely plant the tower, by moving my finger around the screen, and let go when i want to place the tower.

It would be much appreciated if you made it so that you could choose where to play directly from the game And maybe also how zoomed out it should be, as i myself would love to play in for example famous places

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Cheers!

Really enjoyed your analysis. Exactly the kind of feedback i expected!

First : Yes, i kinda am in the process of finding why the heck that is happening. Since i use a different thread to load location data while the game is loading that probably is the culprit. I will check that out as it is a real deal breaker.


Second: When the game crashes do you see any pattern of why it crashes? It used to have a mem leak but it should be corrected some iterations ago. I will try to further test and debug the app as well!


Third: Unfortunatly this is a known issue. Most location based games have a serious issue with some locations. The solution to this is, either we scale down the size of the towers, or we add the option to zoom the map (in the settings for an instance). The default zoom is 18 (used to be 17) because in some situation more than that proved to be excessive.

On with the suggestions

First: True, i didn't include the price on the button. Honestly i haven't done it yet cause the graphics aren't final. But it's true that i should consider something like that in the following versions.

Second: Tower placement is still an issue, yes it is. Your solution seems to be great! The tower will follow your finger while it moves and is only placed when you lift it. That does solve the tower placement issue.

Third: Well, this is supposedly where the load game feature comes in. It allows you to play any game you previously created. It also allows you to keep track of your scores of each of those created games. It is a finished feature and i'm only looking for a place to host the DB the webservice server and the website. Of course i only created the load game feature because it was kinda required. I agree that specifying the place where you'd like to play your game (via text box or so) is probably the way to go! I will definetly try to add that


Well, that about covers it! Glad you took time to play it and to come up with some neat ideas! Will definetly add them to the main post! I will try to add if not all, some ideas and correct some bugs you pointed out

Hojlind said:

I have chosen to actually read the errors I get and since I do not get much knowledge out of them I though that you might would I have attached the errors I have had so far (3 different errors in total) and hope that this is usable to you

A little wordlist so you know what it says regarding the words:

"ved" = "by" or "at"

"undtagelseskode" = "exception code"

"undtagelsesadresse" = "exception adress"

"læser" = "reader"

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Hm, seems that the mem leaks are back. Although i am pretty sure were i messed up. The thing is that i tested a mem leak free version of the game and then i changed some stuff that i thought wouldn't affect the game. Guess i was wrong xD. Will look into it. By sunday or monday i will have a new version, with some bugs corrected and hopefully some new features. I am still writting the thesis and its due to the end of this month, so time isn't really on my side for it. But this project will be continued after that ^^. Thanks for the heads up mate!

Well, just finnished correcting some bugs on the fly. They were kinda obvious ones. Mem leak is corrected, although you might notice some slow downs. Mem management is still due to be optimized but you shouldnt experience Out of Memory exceptions anymore.

Aditionally you can now exit and reenter the game. At least as far as i can tell. If you get a Direct3D exception you will prolly have to reboot the device to run again. But this should not appear.

Oh, and you can now say where you'd you like to play the game. This is still a bit buggy but i will improve it soon. This is in the settings part. Also you can now especify the level of zoom in the map .

Some bugs regarding the positioning of the player in the map are expected (especially when using the "Customized location" option... ) but they will be looked at ^^.

I'm now uploading the new version, and will update the first post.


Kudos everybody!

There, updated the first post. Also took the liberty of correcting the links. The game should be more stable now, although i expect quite a few bugs when using custom game location setting and moving around the map. Also, please give some feedback regarding the GPS positioning precision on different zoom levels.

Next iteration i will try to improve the tower placement procedure, and a few other things.

Finishing thesis

Sorry for being this absent for so long guys. Anyways, i'm now in the process of finishing up my thesis. Hopefully even during this week, I will be able to produce a new version of the game with added features. Stay tuned!

Well, sorry for the lack of news, but the new version is up. It should be a little bit more stable (hopefully). I am considering ditching the Direct3D API and going for Opengl ES. Well, anyways, here are the changes:

- You can now play the game without using the GPS module (you just need to un check the "General moves" option, and fill in the address bar with a valid google maps address)
- Now allows for drag and drop towers. You tap what tower you want to add and then tap and drag around to place it accuratly.

For the future version (hopefully comming in a few days) i was considering:

- Abitily to use neither the GPS nor Data connections! Playing an already downloaded map (for starters this will only allow you to play your latest game. In the future i'm thinking about giving players the ability of playing any played game again).

- Reworked in game graphics. Lets face it, the graphism isn't bad. It just plainly sucks. Will aim for a more coherent design...

- DirectX made menus. Yeah, the .net menus get the job done but they do fell very '90ish. A background image and some custom drawn controls would look nice, don't ya think ^^.

Well, the latest is available in the first post. As always, provide feedback fellas ^^. Kudos from me!

Well guys, seems like i'm on a streak. A newer version is out. It is similar to the previous one with a few visual tweaks:

- All images were kind "Cartoonified" now. Looks cool, i'm thinking of doing something like that to the google map image. Whaddya think?

- Also, as sugested, the buttons now contain a previews of the tower's price as well as a miniature preview of them.

The next major version will have all the menus reworked hopefully. After that, (which will take me a lot of time definetly, since i have to create the textures and alter the game itself) i will consider going to OpenGL ES. It should only require me to change the renderer part of my engine (since OpenGL doesnt use sprites, but planes with textures) as well as the picking procedures for integrating the tapping on the screen with the game logic ( Direct3D does this smoothly, OpenGL requires me to use a projection for doing so -_-'. An orthographic one should do the trick ). Will keep u guys updated, and keep those suggestions commin ^^.