Content Overview
Design Document
Concept
The Concept. The Intent to create a completely collabrative
game, Where no one author is responsible for the game and a shared view
of the game is developed with the hope of bringing the creativity of
the new with the experience of the old. The Initial plan for the story
was to have the caracter a young person lose his entire clan in a
trajic rain by a warlord intont on total control. I'm using clan
instead of family because the idea was that for these people in this
world the can was this persons entire family they all cared for
ecaother like family so instead of just lossing his family he has lost
everything his whole life there is no should to lean on he is alone and
want's nothing but revenge. I know it's not original but we can move on
to have a change
of character give him a pourpose to figh he may not be th only one in
this situation and there may be people he meets along the way people he
cares for people that are weaker than hime people he must protect a
reason for him to stand and fight his own clan. A chance to make things
right and give them at least the chance to start again, at least for
them.
Name of The Game
The lost clan is a basic sumary of what is happening to the
people of this world. There world and culture is dying due to the
destruction brough be palan the warlord. The World The world Is set
semi ancient china but not. Its open for disscussion but I just felt
the mood would be right. I have opted a different font than would be
expected because ot is not an asian culture just simialar but being of
and othere than simi-asian feel we can add our own
methodologies and culture to the game.
People
Open for discussion
The Players
Being java I am aware that there will be a stong view on on-line multy player features. But for this game I strong recomaned that we focus on a single player game with a story line because this way we can later possibly make a multy player game latter in a world gamers would already have some connection to.
NPCs
Palan - Ruthless Warlord.
Open for discussion
Items
Open for discussion
Battles
The battles are in my vision a real time card battle. Not turn
based this allows players to get better and offers challenges as NPC ai
can cast faster depending on there skill. Thre are 4 main
card type earth air fire water and can be cast on youself during game
or battle, for examble you may have a wind speed card wich allows you
to move faster. or slow down in battle sequences so you can
effectivly cast more cards. During cast specfic cast may have
a charge wich would allow you to option how much of you energy or life
you want to add to that cards cast strength. this is important as i
hope to have a card that uses you own life this card will be pivitol in
the last battle where you must die to beat palan. Ther may also be
option for joining cards to multiply attack strength or merging all 4
types to create and energy card wich would be the highest ranking card.
directing attacks could be made via mouse sellection or by
targeting an enemy. Of course there are allowances for
healing cards etc so untill futher discussion i hope this concept is
acceptable.
Specs
Run Specs
Window or Applet runnable
Full Screen Exclusive Option able.
Java Platform. 1.6
World Specs
Multiple layer TileMap with buffered Octant Pre Load.
Multiple Layers
Allors the player to travers no only up,down,left,right but to the
height
and depths of the world.
Buffered Octand Pre Load
Imagine a 3x3 grid and each grid is a stage to begin all 9 grods would
be loaded however if the play moves to the across left, this meand that
a columb of 1x3 would need to be buffered while the grids not
connectid to the players current posistion can be dumped.
Dragon's Path
This Concept would allow the play to teleport do different areas
of the map by walking on it a taking certain paths this is deigned to
confuse as the Dragon wont seem to conform to real space and
direction and also leave possibility for people to get lost if the dont
know which turns to take.
Light Map
Light Map Are Effects
Based on Light Sources Rendered As Composites on the Current
Visible Layers.
Rendering Notes.
The rendering process of the game requires many tests on the area of the visible map. So With this document I hope to clarify a method for rendering the world.The World itself consits of partitions of the complete game world. by partitioning the world it is possible to load the the required resources for either volitile or cached used during the game.
Figure
1.1 Illustrates the loading structure.
as you can set the player starts the word at
the worl coordinates (3,3) while with in that grid the game is loading
grids (2,2),(2,3)(2,4)(3,2),(3,4) and (3,2...4) that goes without
saying but this is going
to take a lot of additional time from the processor.
For that
reason
all loading
should be done vai the a thread pool and map data should only retain
information for a
reference to a tile or image object. this way we can cache common
textures and ass the game progress we should only have to load few new
textures and other resources spefic to that map.
(see figure
1.3)During Level design it is important to make sure level designers are makeing smooth transitions between maps so the need for loading lots of new textures is elliminated.
Points
- Use java concurrent api where possible Analyse thread priorites.
- Keep an eye on level design.
- Consider Using a new Image FileType RGBA (Interlaced)
- Design Cache System Word Map Partitions.
The Map Partition
should conatain no actual images and only access throught the Resource Manager. Each Map should conatin information on how many or the priotiity of a tile. using a prioitised method rater than a tile count may allow for better buffering where the least prioritsed tiles may be tiles on upper or lower layers depending on where a character has enterd this partition and distance to the center of the map. a tile a the center of the map could quite possibly be the last tile needed except for instances of teleportation.Levels and Layers
Levels contain Layers. For this game the two terms can't be confused for the same meaning.Layers
layers are a needed in RPG's to allow for objects to be drawn behind objects. if layers did'nt exist we would have a flat surface with a character walking over trees and so forth. To do this i would recoment rendering from top left to bottom right buy Horizontal lines. Each level is represented by tile sets and object placed in specif layers with according information such as passible impassable, transparent, water, burning etc.
This information allows the character and objects to interact with the world correctly. collision detection only needs to be detected on that specific tiles information.
General
Layers.
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Specific elements. Any Layer in the game should contain extended data for a self renderable area. this area will have to maintainis own handling of collision and actions. The reason for tis is to allow for puzzles and traps in the game. The game at some stage may requre an object that rotates and the caracter would have to jump on to it like a platform and then to additional rotating platforms without falling through to a lower layer. This mean the object must handle its own rendering and its own interaction with the world and characters
Levels
Levels in the
game are a beautiful feature in this game the
allow for a caracter
to travers the world like no other RPG. you could go into a cave
entrance and come
out through star to the upper level. In order for this to work
the depth culling algorithm is going to have to test bi-directionaly.
this allows for rendering of lower levels through this or subsequent
levels. and
also allows upper levels to be tested for visiblility from lower level,
This will be have
to be defined in the map itself and not tile data. It makes little
sence to render upper leveles unless the level designer specifily wants
the character to have visiblilty
for instance visibility the outside of a cave entrance.
Figure 1.5 illustrates Levels as you can see the entrance and exit of the cave have been marked as visible from level -1. The fade effects will need considertion and the map editor will have to count all maps and their levels to determin map heights to avoid -1 figures.
Levels
- Upper Levels, this layer can expicitly effect the lighting layer
- Current Level
- Lower Levels
- The caracter must contain reference to where he is in the z-index or current level. this will ensure that a character dose not trasition from map to map going from deep underground caves to mountain peeks.
- Use simple test for collision test to allow for extra processing by depth culling.
- Prioritising Tool in the Editor, This should allow for exception to the priority model such as teleportations.
- Ingame priorities should account for current level and need for upper textures
- We may be able to clip the lighting level where an upper level renders an area not visable. This may or maynot become worth while but is an option that may be worth remebering.
- An optimisation fro rendering layer due to the fact they generaly wont have an object on each tile it may be possible to add a varible for skip telling the render to jump n tiles.
Final Rendering
The Final Rendering should only accounts for a small amount the processors time all that need to be rendererd is the actual renderd map. The Lighting Map and the hud.Team Structure
Development Team Model
Production ManagerCore
Programming Department LeaderCore,Directors,Producers
Lead ProgrammerDirectors,
Software ArchetectsProducers
Assistant ProgrammersProducers
Program Intergration Specialist,Directors,Producers
Artistic Department LeaderCore
Art DirectorDirectors
ArtistsProducers
AnimatorsProducers
Creative & Story DirectorCore,Producers,Directors
Script writer'sProducers
Level LordsCore,Producers
Audio Department LeaderCore,Producers
Sound Effects TeamProducers
Musical Scoring MembersProducers
Internationalization Leader
TranslationsCore,Directors,Producers
Web DevelopentCore,Directors,Producers
Creative Team.
Everybody who joins is part of the creative team and has equal rights to the projects development provided the obey team guidelines.
Resposibilities.Working collaberativly togeather to get the best from each other.
Benjamin Tarrant.
The Production Manager, And is responsible for the concept.
Resposibilities.
Managing the team and posting news and updating design and team documention.
Ensuring the creative collaberation between memebers, to allow for the creative development of the project.
Reviewing Product releases. Ensuring creative possibilities are not restricted wher applicable.
Monitoring team perfomance and members or lack thereof. In such instances where a team member is an avalible such as a position not appointed obligated to do something about the fact.
Bart Cremers.
Lead Programmer. The equal first to John Wesley to join the project. Thus senior member. Blistering fast coder this stuff is his kung-fu.
Resposibilities.Initial archetect. Designing the first draft of the game engine to be relase and maintain.
Review of software archetects and assistand programmers to be added to the OldHat LostClan Team.
Implement creative concepts into the game. Engine by liasing with team memebers and reviwing tasks assigned and delegating or actiong said tasks.
John Wesley
John equal first member to join the team with Bart is our Script Writer.
Not an easy task to be charged with but no doubt he will bring a creatie story to the game.
Resposibilities.
Managing Story lines and creating the script. This will involve a lot of thought and communication with team memebers to bring an epic story to the LostClan Game.
Posting up-to-date script and ideas to be view by team relative team members and implemented in this bible for reference.
Muhammet Kara
Turkish Translator for the LostClan Project and is the Internationalization Leader for the translation team.
Responsibilities
Translations Support for the Project Website and Game
Giuseppe Pignataro
Italian Translator for the lostclan project.
Responsibilities
Translations Support for the Project Website and GameJerko
German Translator for the lostclan project.Responsibilities
Translations Support for the Project Website and GameJim Irving
Jim has joined and will be assiting in the developent of the code for the project.
Responsibilities
Creativly interact with team member to help ensure team interactions an tools are designed and built as a result of creative discussions.
Manage task's and code as part of the programming team.
Julian Rodriquez
Artistic Department, Juilian is currently the sole member of the art depatment.
Responsibilities
Manage Artistic format and congruety thoughout the game.
Andy Kipp
Andy is part of the programming team has is very experinced. andy has also been resposible for the initial web layout is is a very usfull resource in the structuring of the group.
Responsibilities
Programmer for the lost clan project.
Assisit and take lead in team structure and managment.
General Notes
Team Members in a department are responsible and or must assist(where possible) maitaining subsequent levels of design until such time a person can be appointed to specif job titles.Guidelines
Under Review
Team Interaction
Communications Model
All Team Members should post messgaes and assign task using the forum and traker systems where applicaple. By this if the Team is required to be notified an gerneral or is felt a subject should be left open for discussion. Otherwise Directect Communication via e-mail is acceptable.
If a team member feels unsure of where to post a message to The Support Department Forum or to the Production Manager Directly.
Creative Team Acceptance.
All memebers are part of the creative team and should contribute and make allowances from contributions and or ideas from each-other where applicable.
Disputes.
Department Leaders Should be able to manage disputes or creative differences, If a member of this team feels they are being unfailt treated the can Request assistance from the Production manager directly.
Accountability.
We all need each other in order to make this project a success if a member feel another member is unable or is unwillng to assist when needed you should direct your concerns to Departhment Leader or my self to ensure that that member is either given additional or management or assistence so that you are able to get the assistance you need.