Design Document
Triangles Vs Circles
Table of Contents
Preliminary
Name of the Game: Triangles Vs Circles
Name of the Team: Wren
Name of Team Members: Robert Long, Richard Vong, Fausto Sihite
Game Overview
Influences and Genre
The genre of this game is very classical of vertical scrolling shooter games like Raiden, Space Invaders, Up and Up!, and Razor 2. The story and background of the game comes from Zelda, Super Mario, and the Lord of the Rings with a dark twist.
Description, Key Features, Win Conditions
The our team initially envisioned very different things for the game. One member wanted an action game, one member wanted a puzzle game, and the other member wanted t a quizzing/self learning game. As a result, our flavor of the vertical scrolling shooter utilizes the entire keyboard (yes, all the buttons). Instead of holding a button to fire, the user must press the correct button to destroy the enemy (there is no need to aim). For example, an enemy may have a letter such as "A" labeled inside the circle; in such a case, destroying the enemy is as simple as pressing the letter associated with this character on the keyboard (case insensitive). To further complicate things, we have obstacles that punishes the user when attacking or enemies that only have a short window of time for being attacked before they become invulnerable. Additionally, the user can be punished for hitting the wrong key or hitting an obstacle by accident muting them from attacking for several seconds. Finally, because the entire keyboard is used, each level comes with a theme, and to destroy the enemies, the users must be able to solve the problems that display upon the enemy's label. For example, a floating enemy may have a label 2+2 for which the answer is 4; an incomplete word such as fa_cy, for which n would be the answer; a picture of an apple, for which the user must type in how to spelling of the image to answer correctly. Later levels get more complicated and involve more subjects such as chemistry, biology, music theory, trigonometric identities, derivatives, other mathematical formulas and much more.
Outline of Background Story
While the user is attacking, the user must also dodge and maneuver the flurry of attacks from multiple enemies. Succeeding in this game requires sharp wit, good attention, and a bit of dexterity. In addition to attack penalties there are movement penalties as well, though rare and is usually done by special bosses. To clear a level the player simply needs to survive to the end of the level without dying. Needless to say, winning the game is just a matter of surviving all the levels.
The protagonist of the story is the Triangle (the player) attempting to defend and restore order in the universe against the evil Circles. The plot centers around the Arcane Circle which can allow intergalactic travel and inter-dimensional travel. With the power the Arcane Circle mass armies can be deployed anywhere instantaneously, giving the commander a tremendous advantage over any war. This allows them to quickly colonize and conquer any galaxy. Princess Isosceles from Triangle land is needed to arcane circle and is kidnapped. If she is sacrificed, the Arcane Circle will open up and endow the evil Meridian circle with supreme war powers. You play as Prince Right Angle to try and save the princess and stop the portal from being opened. The player starts in Triangle land, but travels intergalactically to Circle land as the game progresses.
Art Design
The art style, mostly based on vectors and inspired by the metro style design from windows 7, 8 and from other vector-based games like Zelda for Wii. We are primarily relying on the cartoonish look and silhouette of the characters. Such inspirations also come from indie games like Mark of the Ninja and super meat boy.
The logo is inspired by the Arcane Circle designs and the letters from the Lord of the Rings inscribed on the inside of the ring. The enemies are mainly circles, but differ by adding different gradient animations, size, color, and outer strokes. The cinematic characters are also very simple and plain: the Prince Right is a right triangle with a circle inside, Princess Isosceles is an isosceles triangle with a crown, and the boss Circle Meridian is a circle with a perforated curve near the center. The background in Triangle land is mainly inspired by 2-dimensional cartoonish triangles; this is the same with circle land. The bulk of the game takes place in inter-galactic travel. The background here relies heavily upon science fiction shows and films such as Star Wars, Star Trek, and even StarCraft.
Technical Platform
The goal of this game is to survive (remain alive with at least 1 bar of health) for the duration of each level. To do this the player must master how to maneuver through waves of enemy attacks, while at the same time, firing back at enemy ships to prevent them from continuing to fire or--in some cases--breed even more enemies. The player must be sharp to quickly see which keys to press to fire at an enemy, but just as important, the player must be wise to know which keys not to press.
Game Specifications
Rules/Mechanics
The goal of this game is to survive (remain alive with at least 1 bar of health) for the duration of each level. To do this the player must master how to maneuver through waves of enemy attacks, while at the same time, firing back at enemy ships to prevent them from continuing to fire or--in some cases--breed even more enemies. The player must be sharp to quickly see which keys to press to fire at an enemy, but just as important, the player must be wise to know which keys not to press.
Maneuvering
To explore further, allow us dig deeper into the mechanics of this game. The player uses the arrow keys left, up, right, and down to move the ship on screen. Also, the player can maneuver using non-contradicting (e.g. up+down or left+right) direction such as up+left, or down+left to move in two directions at the same time. There is a bit of acceleration and inertia built into the game, however, because the buttons only have an on/off state the sensitivity cannot be instantly perceived (like an analog game stick). As a result we found great results with holding for a acceleration and a reset of the acceleration when the button is released. This is useful if the player wishes to move quickly in a particular direction. As well, if the player needs to stop or move precisely, it can be achieved through tapping the direction keys. These movements are identical to any vertical scrolling shooter game. However, the attack mechanism in our game is a lot more interesting and it is unique to any vertical shooting game that our team has encountered so far.
Attack System
Attacking is simple in this game: the player simply presses a button associated with the enemy's label. For example, an enemy is inscribed with the label "J". When a player presses the "J" (case insensitive) on the keyboard, the ship will automatically launch an attack to destroy the enemy. The attack is guaranteed to hit and there is no need for aiming. Now for the interesting part. The player will get penalized if the s/he accidentally hits the wrong key associated with the enemy. Say for example the player hits the "E" key on the keyboard and there is no such enemy associated with that key on the screen, the player will be penalized for this mistake. This punishment is not being able to attack for a variable amount of time. The length of the penalty depends the level, how many enemies are on the screen (less if there are lots of enemies), and the player's recurring mistakes (yes, the game keeps track of all your mistakes). The actual penalty is calculated based on the base penalty which is .824 seconds (subject to change), in addition to the variables discussed earlier. For a detailed description on attack penalties, please see our section on monsters and levels respectively.
What not to attack...
As well, there are monsters that should not be attacked. If the player destroys a monster under normal circumstances, s/he will be penalized as if the wrong button was pressed. Furthermore, the player will incur a significantly lengthier attack hindrance. As before, the hindrance is based on several parameters such as current level, current health, current enemies on the screen, and recurring mistakes. The base penalty for this is not fixed and depends on the enemy, but smallest base that exist is about a little more than twice the base penalty of the wrong key pressed. The presence of the obstacle enemies are usually only momentary in early levels and eventually automatically disappear. Other incarnations of these obstacle enemies can remain indefinitely, but can be killed. For example, the coin enemy will remain mostly in the front side, and if the player hit the letter inscribed inside it, the player will be penalized as described earlier on obstacle enemies. But, periodically, the coin will flip for a short period of time with another inscription inside. If the player hits the key that is associated with this label inscription, the enemy will disappear. There are some more enemies and bosses that work similar to this principle.
You must think!
To further complicate things, the inscription of the circles in later levels will contain riddles, puzzles, fill-in-the-blanks, mathematical formulas, mental arithmetic, definitions, music theory, trivia, images requiring identification, and other wonderful brain-challenging problems. As such, some enemies require a sequence of keys to be pressed in order to be destroyed. Such as the case for an enemy with an inscription of an apple picture. The way to destroy this enemy is to simply type "A", "P", "P","L","E". For each correct letter the player hits, the ship will launch a projectile attack. This also applies to more complicated inscriptions such as "4+48", the correct sequence to destroy this enemy s "5","2" on the keyboard. To complicate things even further, the player must be astute to realize an obstacle enemy which may overlap with the sequence of keys to kill the enemy. Say for example the enemy with the apple picture appears, however, there is an obstacle enemy which is inscribed with the letter "L". If the careless player "A", "P", "P","L" or even worse "A", "P", "P","L","E" in the presence of this obstacle enemy, the player will be punished once for the "L" and then once again for hitting the "E". The penalties can be stacked up to a certain threshold, the longer the threshold, the more can be stacked. For example, level one's threshold is up to 8.213 seconds of non-attacks, this threshold rises as you progress to higher levels.
Success in this game requires a combination of quickly maneuvering away from enemy attacks while attempting to fire back at enemies by astutely deciding the correct button or sequence of buttons to press. This game challenges the player's attention, dexterity, wit, memory, and logical reasoning.
Art Work and User Interface
So far we have sketches and ideas of our ideas on paper. As well we have also created some enemies and backgrounds for the game. The screenshots in the last section depicts our progress so far.
Main Characters
Enemies
Type 1 enemies with variances . . .
Variance 1
Variance 1.1
Variance 2
Type 2 enemies with variances . . .
Enemy Type 2 Variance 1
Enemy Type 2 Variance 2
Enemy Type 2 Variance 3
Enemy Type 2 Variance 4
More Complex Enemies
Obstacles
Projectiles
Projectile Type 1
Projectile Type 2
Projectile Type 3
Projectile Type 4
Projectile Type 5
Projectile Type 6
Logo
Other Screenshots
Game Arena
Game Menu
Gameplay and Balance
The gameplay is a vertical scrolling shooter, enemies will come into the screen and attempt to deplete all the player's life points. The game emphasizes mainly the player's vision and reactions to the correct keys pressed at the right moments. Attacks do not need to aim, but will penalize the player for hitting the inappropriate key.
The difficulty of the game is very simple at the beginning as the player simply needs to dodge and react to labels on the screen. However, as levels advance, the penalties for hitting the wrong keys will drastically increase. For example, hitting the wrong key may disallow the player to attack for 3 or 6 seconds, compared to the 1-2 seconds from earlier levels. In addition, there will be more difficult monsters that will replicate or monsters that can only be attacked in a window of time; as a result, incurring this penalty can be dire.
There is generally no physics, and in fact, the actual planes do not even move. The background moves downward to give the player of an illusion of moving up. The animation and effects mainly come from projectiles which will animate to provide an illusion of collision. Also, the movement and sensitivity of movement utilizes acceleration and provides a bit of inertia. Finally, the hit boxes and projectiles are calculated a bit of physics to see if the projectile is inside of a boundary.
Generally the player acquires more life randomly as they kill enemies. Weapons such as bombs or protection is dropped based on the player's performance or special monsters that will appear. Later levels will contain problems that players must solve before destroying the enemy. Each level is associated with a particular theme. Labels inscribed in the enemies include (but are not limited to): riddles, puzzles, fill-in-the-blanks, mathematical formulas, mental arithmetic, definitions, music theory, trivia, images requiring identification, and other wonderful brain-challenging problems.
Bounty and power ups depend on the monster, the performance of the player, and the current score of the player. The scoring is measured based on how fast the player sees the enemy entering the stage and how long it takes for them to destroy the enemy. The score system will reward bonuses for not making a mistake (hitting the inappropriate key or hitting an obstacle). This bonus is compounded as the consecutive streak goes into the 100's or above. For each 100,000 points, the user regains a life bar; for each 10,000,000 points the player gains a life.
Music and Sound
So far, we have not discussed too far into this topic and we cannot come to an agreement on which songs to use. A member of the team is electing to do a up-beat metal song as the background the song can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqrN6vOq0g0.
As far as the sound, an interesting is http://bfxr.net to generate the attacking effects and damage effects for the ships.
Background and Story
The story is centralized around the Arcane Circle. This symbol can be created underneath the castle of in Circle Land and can be summoned by Lord Meridian Circle. This Arcane Circle has a mysterious tie to the Triangle Land and Lord Meridian finds out that the Princess of the Triangle Land is required to complete the Arcane Circle. Upon its Completion, the circle endows the patron with supreme war powers. It can teleport an enormous number of soldiers to any place in the galaxy allowing the patron to colonalize and conquer the entire inter-dimensional universe.
The game begins when Lord Circle Meridian successfully crosses into Triangle Land and invades the triangle castle. Lord Circle Meridian kidnaps Princess Isosceles and tries to escape back into Circle Land. Prince Right Triangle cases after the evil Lord Circle Meridian. This is the bulk of the story and the main stage where the player will experience the game. The prince fights off the army that Lord Meridian establishes and goes all the way to the door steps of circle castle.
Spoiler Alert: If you do not want to know the ending, stop reading now!
Upon entering the castle, the Prince realizes that the princess was murdered and sacrificed to complete the circle. The Arcane Circle unleashes unimaginable energy and transforms Lord Circle Meridian into his 3D form and endowing him with the supreme powers to control his army. Surprisingly, the energy from the Arcane Circle also transforms Prince Right Triangle into a his 3D form.
Characters
Below is a rough sketch of the characters inside the game. This is (needless to say) a very rough sketch.
Prince Right Triangle
Prince Right Triangle lives in Triangle Castle in Triangle Land. He is the main protagonist and is a grown adult around 26 years old. He is a very serious personality with large ambitions. He possesses qualities in himself that he cannot explain, but as he enters Circle land he finds that his these powers are common in this world. Inscribed inside himself is a glowing circle.
Princess Isosceles Triangle
The sister of Prince Right Triangle, she lives with her brother. She is a lively and innocent character.
Lord Meridian Circle
The one of the most ruthless conquerors of the entire universe. He has been known to win every single war. He found the Arcane Circle through ancient documents written by rulers of his castle millions of generations earlier. The inscription was discovered in a tomb under the castle of an unknown ruler. Upon the consumption of the transcription the entire casket degenerates...
Levels
In general, we started envisioning many levels, but we decided to narrow it down to 5 levels. The reason was due to time constraint and because we wanted to put a lot into the levels. If time permits and we are early, we will naturally add more levels.
Each level gets harder, requiring the player to be quicker at maneuvering, discovering enemies, solving problems, and the penalties will increase dramatically. Furthermore, the player's life will increase and the bounty for each difficult kill will be more rewarding.
Level 0 - Tutorial
This level serves to introduce the player to the game. This level comes in phases, most of which are exhaustive in exposure to different projectiles and enemies, but brief in length. It begins in phase 1 by showing them how to maneuver through enemy attacks (without firing). This part of the game takes up about 15% of the entire level. The main emphasis is on using the right hand. For example enemies will come on to the screen with a time to live--no labels, but they will expire after x seconds. This level cannot be skipped.
In this phase, the player will endure many different kinds of projectiles, each one enemy at a time. There is the single linear projectile which will fire in a straight line, one at a time--this is the simplest of all attacks. Next, the player will be exposed to a continuous attack, which fires many dot (projectiles) at a time in a linear line. However, when the player moves, the enemy must recalculate the new position of the player to begin attacking again. Next we have the circular dotted nova attack, which fires waves of circles emitting from the center of the monster. Afterwards, the player is exposed to a faster version of the circular dotted nova attack (with a higher attack rate). Finally, the player is exposed to 2-3 of these types of attack at once. In addition, there will be an enemy which will fire at a random point around the player (but still may hit the player).
Once the player has satisfactorily endured the maneuvering phase, the player will learn how to attack. Attacking in this game does not require aiming and a hit is always guaranteed granted the user hits the appropriate keys. Perhaps more important is what keys not to press. At the beginning phase of this state, the user is presented with monsters that are associated with the left side of the keyboard. For example, monsters with will appear with the inscriptions: q,w,e,a,s,d,z,x, or c. During this time, if the player hits a key that is not associated with any monsters, the player will be panelized and will not be able to fire for at least 2 seconds. As the player progresses through this phase, simple obstacles will be introduced. Each penalty can stack up to 20 seconds. For example, an obstacle with a picture of a bomb may appear. If the player hits the key associated with the bomb obstacle, the player will be muted from attacking for at least 4 seconds.
In phase 3, more complex bosses will appear with more complicated projectiles. The keyboard widens and the bomb's signatures will overlap with inscription of the current enemies. The player must really learn to be judicious about which keys to press and when to press them. In this phase, the keyboard widens completely and by the end of the this phase, the user must be able to access any keys on the keyboard while maneuvering through the attacks.
In phase 4, killing the enemies will no longer be simple. Inscriptions inside the circle will no longer be straight forward, but will be problems or riddles which must be solved. In addition, mini-bosses may appear to give the user a taste of all projectiles in the fundamental projectiles in the entire game. The final phase is brief, but it is actually harder than the first level of the game.
This level takes place in Triangle Land traveling away to Circle Land.
Level 1 - Words, Pictures, and Letters
This entire level is composed of simple inscriptions and associations, mostly of single letters, brisk multiple-lettered monsters, and picture associations. This level takes place in the intergalactic travel between Triangle Land and Circe Land. The enemies of all types usually of variance 1. Obstacles will appear mainly as isolated at the beginning of the game, but will interfere by the end of the level.
Power ups and defenses can be acquired by performing well and scoring high throughout the levels. Compounded bonuses can be attained through making consecutive streaks into the 100's (without hitting the inappropriate key or an obstacle).
The level 1 boss is the Coin boss. This enemy cannot be attacked when it is in its front side, but can be attacked when it flips to its back side to recharge. When it is flipped over on its back, only takes about 1.5 seconds to recharge before flipping over again. If the player fails to attack the boss when the window of opportunity is open, the Coin boss will regain 1 health point. The this boss has 27 health points. The player must defeat this boss in order to clear this level; this boss does not have an expiration time.
Level 2 - Simple Math, DNA Sequencing, Fill-in-the Blanks, Chemistry
This level takes place at the end of the intergalactic travels and we begin to see the galaxy belonging to the Triangle Land. Enemies here will be inscribed with more complicated inscriptions that include simple math such as adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying one- or two- digit numbers. Simple DNA codes will appear and players must answer with the complement to destroy the enemy. Simple chemistry of the most popular elements will appear and players must either identify elemental symbol based on the heuristics given or associate the element with its atomic weight. Fill in the blanks may include (but is not limited to) simple grammar rules and spellings.
In addition, charged enemies will appear for the first time (not seen in the tutorial). A brief instruction will show on how to kill them when they are first encountered. They do not have an inscription, but the player must quickly count how many of them there are and press the number associated with their count. They will appear and charge for a total of 1.2 seconds. If the player does not successfully destroy the enemy, it disappear and return again 3-5 seconds later in larger numbers. Each succession will make it harder for the player to count as they will become more scattered throughout the screen. If the player incurred an attack penalty, it will slow the growth and increase the time needed to charge and attack for this type of enemy.
Enemies will include all types including variance 1 and 2. The level 1 boss will also appear as mini bosses throughout the level. Variance 3 and beyond will not appear in this level. The boss on this level is a snake and is made of essentially smaller enemies. Like boss in level 1, there is only a small window of time when this boss vulnerable. When one of its body part is hit and destroyed, the boss unleashes a dotted nova centered around the position of the body that is destroyed. The boss takes about 54 points to destroy and does not regain life.
Level 3 - Trigonometric Identities, Derivatives, Famous Formulas, Music Theory, Pop Culture Trivia
In this level, the player is nearing the Circle Planet and the main part of the level takes place inside the Circle Planet. By the end of the level the player is on the doorsteps of the circle castle.
This level contains all the enemies of all types include those that existed from the previous levels. Variance 3 type enemies and the Coin boss will appear, but the level 2 boss will not be present. In addition to the difficult enemies, hard questions will appear and coming up with the solution will take time. The trade off is the extra points acquired from each enemy is vastly more than previous levels so gaining life can be periodic if the player is performing well. A constant and harmonic utilization of both hands is crucial to finishing this level. The final boss here is a mother ship which breeds many bacteria. These bacteria fires single linear shots, but can replicate every 1.125 seconds (in binary) to quickly fill the screen. Only when all the bacteria is gone will there be a window of opportunity to strike the boss. Every time the boss is struck, 4-6 enemy bacteria will spawn. The boss has 99 health points.
Level 4 - Lord Meridian Circle
This level is inside the castle. The Princess is sacrificed and the Arcane Circle is completed. Both the player and the boss enter a 3D world. This level is ambitious and is done in 3D. It is a big huge boss fight. The boss is a gigantic mother ship with super powers and must be destroyed in parts.
Scripts/Cut Scenes
Scripts and cut scenes will be created as the game develops. We have not prepared too much in detail for this yet.
Artificial Intelligence
Many vertical scrolling shooter games are preprogrammed in each level. This game will be more dynamic. The artificial intelligence will mainly drive an enemy to move after a period of time has elapsed or spread out. Complicated projectiles, bosses, and obstacles will need to be dynamic and 'smart' depending how much life the user has left or if the user is making the same mistakes or not.
Technical Specs
Our library includes the standard Windows XAML API that is used to create user interfaces done in C# and the .Net framework. For animation and enemies we are using blend to animate them with motion easing. We are utilizing the model-view-viewmodel design pattern. For example, our ship has a view and is driven by our view model. The basic layout of our project involves the main stage control, the background control, and the enemies container.
For each advancing level, the enemies are loaded into the enemies container which is a simple Items Control. When an attack is launched, a project is fired from the ship to the enemy and the animation is played for a hit on the enemy or a destruction of the enemy. Animations are done on storyboards which can generally be applied to almost any view control (excluding special animations meant for that particular boss or enemy).
The 3D (last level) will also make use of the 3D engine in XAML. Models will be done in Maya and imported into WPF. Cut scenes, enemies, bosses, and characters will each be a control with a set of storyboards which will play when appropriate.
Hit boxes, boundaries, scoring, game sensitivity, and game events is driven by our simple game engine that is purely code and is not exclusively coupled with any views. Below is a general idea of our entire structure of Triangle Vs Circles.
Schedule and Personnel
Schedule
| Week | Robert Long |
|---|---|
| 5 | Finish Hit Box Calculations for monsters |
| Improve smoothness for multiple non-contradicting inputs | |
| Create Score System | |
| Create basic projectiles | |
| 6 | Improve Projectile System to include more complicated events |
| Implement advanced score system and bonus systems for the user | |
| Finalize level 0 tutorial | |
| help with cut scenes and story | |
| 7 | Begin programming tools for all boss ai's and enemy ai's |
| work on projectile system to include charged enemies | |
| Create main menu and loadable levels and credit animations | |
| create background for all levels | |
| create dynamic background particles for the appropriate levels | |
| 8 | integrate work with fausto and richard on levels, cinenamtics and story |
| work on intro cut scene, level 1,2,3 cut scenes | |
| begin work on 3D tools required for level 4 | |
| 9 | work on level 4 |
| collaborate closely with fausto create level 4 boss | |
| collaborate with fausto to create the movements and attacks for the boss and the enemy | |
| ensure the hit boxes are correct | |
| work on the final cut scene with fausto | |
| 10 | - see bottom -- |
| Week | Fausto Sihite |
|---|---|
| 5 | Begin work on animating basic enemies |
| Begin work on drawing main characters | |
| Create level 1 boss | |
| 6 | Finish animating all basic enemies |
| Begin work on animating variance 2 and 3 enemies | |
| Begin work on creating all bosses | |
| 7 | Refine basic enemies animation |
| revisit all bosses and refine their animation and looks | |
| begin work on background for each level to reflect the current setting | |
| create simple background for cinematic | |
| begin work on background music for each level | |
| 8 | finalize all bosses |
| finalize all monsters of all variances | |
| finalize all backgrounds for cut scenes to be consumed | |
| begin work on level 4 design and | |
| 9 | work on level 4 with robert |
| collaborate closely to create the boss with correct looks and clipping | |
| work on the final cut scene with fausto | |
| 10 | -- see bottom -- |
| Week | Richard Vong |
|---|---|
| 5 | begin work on tutorial phase 1 |
| work on boss level 1 | |
| prepare firing sound effects | |
| 6 | refine tutorial phase 1 |
| work on phase 2 of tutorial | |
| begin work on level 1 | |
| finalize boss 1 | |
| refine sound effects | |
| Enemy AI's | |
| 7 | test score system |
| coordinate with Robot to adjust score system | |
| finish level 1 and boss 1 | |
| begin level 2 | |
| finish phase 3 and 4 of tutorial | |
| coordinate with Robert for issues | |
| 8 | work and balance level 1,2,3 |
| work and balance all bosses | |
| ensure score system is fair | |
| 9 | ensure enemies are smart when player is performing well and when players are not. |
| collaborate with robert and fausto for game balancing on level 4 | |
| 10 | -- see bottom -- |
| Week | Robert, Richard, Fausto |
|---|---|
| 10 | finalize level 4 and final cut scene |
| check for bugs and does not crash | |
| ensure the gameplay is smooth | |
| create the main menu, credit about screen | |
| make sure everything is fun |
Weekly Status Reports
Team Wren Weekly Status Reports @ Google Doc
Responsibilities
Robert Long - Core game programmer
Fausto Sihite - Programmer and artist
Richard Vong - Programmer for the levels and AI
