Week #5

We are getting everything done for the practice pitch.  I worked on getting the card inventory working for both players.  Made the slideshow for pitch.  Worked with John on how to set up board.  Made it so both players move with d-pad.

Week #4

This week was mostly geared toward deciding exactly what we are going to for the prototype.  We decided to do:

1) Top-down game board view to show the basic mechanics of whats going on.  We will show the idea of how players will plan paths and get items. (Possibly having some basic fight play and how to find weapon).
2) Have different aspects of Tom's art in the prototype as well as just having slides of ideas.
.
I put these ideas on our wiki as well.

Here are some ideas we came up with while playing this week.

Tunnel

-          Two “dice” rolled, must beat tunnel roll in order to get through the tunnel.  Player must beat tunnel in order to get through. (Carnival)

Areas.  Each area of the board will have a theme to it:

           

CARNIVAL		INDUSTRIAL
	KINGDOM
FLYING MACHINE		SHERLOCK HOLMES

Things I read that might be useful

1) In Game Class:
   
     Properties

• ClientBounds -> returns the dimensions of the window or screen.
• IsActive -> Indicates whether the game is currently the active application.
• IsFixedTimeStep -> Gets or sets a value indicating whether to use fixed time steps.
• TargetElapsedTime -> Gets or sets the target time between calls to Update when IsFixedTimeStep is true
• IsMouseVisible -> Gets or sets a value indicating whether to mouse cursor should be visible

2) Game1 resolutions

//set the desired resolutions

Vector2 screen = new Vector2(640, 480);

if (Use720HD)

screen = new Vector2(1280, 720);

graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth = (int)screen.X;

graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight = (int)screen.Y;

graphics.ApplyChanges();

//usable TV resolution is about 90 %

int bx = (int)(screen.X * 0.05);

int by = (int)(screen.Y * 0.05);

workBounds = new Rectangle(bx, by,

(int)screen.X - bx, (int)screen.Y - by);


3) To convert angles in degrees to radians, use the MathHelper.ToRadians method.


4) Layers: value between 0.0f and 1.0f with 1.0f  "on top" and 0.0f is "on bottom".


5) Origin parameter: the point around which the rotation occurs. (i.e. for center would be new Vector2(texture.Width/2, texture.Height/2))

Week #3 The work begins!

We have started setting up stuff for "King of Steam." We worked on basic ideas and layouts which can be seen in John's blog at thecrushinator.blogspot.com.  We also created a wiki https://kingofsteam.wikidot.com/ but it is view private so if you want to view it let us know.  We also set up a SVN repository.  I will be working on getting used to XNA again and updates will become available!

Week #2: Game Pitches!

Here is the game pitch for my game!

KING OF THE STEAM

By

Sarah Ripley

A turn-based search for the ultimate steam-punk weapon to defeat your opponents at the top of the city!

Basic Idea:

• 
  This game is somewhat formatted as a board game. But don’t let this turn you off!

• Players choose their character who start out with their own simple weapon.

• Players take turns rolling dice (or some similar mechanic) to determine how many spaces they can move.

• A player can choose the paths they want to go on to get to the certain squares on the board (described below).

• Be careful! Cross the path of another player and a fight will ensue where the victor gets their opponents supplies.

Ultimate goal:

• Collect a useful weapon and all the gear you need while still trying to get to the end of the board before the other players.

• The first player to reach the top can set up defenses in preparation for the other players.

• Once all players reach the top the ultimate fight happens to determine who will win the game!

Spaces:

• collect items that help/ repair weapons (oil, etc.)
• objects that will help with defense at top (gates, landmines, etc.)
• go back a certain amount of spaces
• take away weapon (can be fight against AI to determine)
• chance to search for a weapon (have to choose a random box and hope there's a good weapon in it)
  
  

I didn't put this information in my game design doc, but I had more ideas!:

Weapons:

Good weapons:

• machine gun
• poison dispenser
• pistol
• dog attack
• sword

Not so good weapons:

• handkerchief dispenser
• top-hat tipper
• pet bird
• butter knife