3D fundamentals in the medial space
HfG Schwabisch Gmünd SS 2017
Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Franklin Hernández-Castro
Dominik Fink, Paul Raschke
Mario Rieker, Christian Paulo
The task was to develop a multiplayer arcade game with two functional controllers in a two week sprint with the Box2D Javascript library.
Goldminer is a two player arcade browser game that strongly reminds of games like Worms, Angry Birds and Bomberman. The game was conceived and designed in a two-week interdisciplinary design sprint.
In the game each player controls one of the two dwarves. In the middle of the playing field there is a mine in which there are gold and stone boulders, which the players can dismantle. You can either harvest blocks in the mine or additionaly steal them from the enemy’s tower.
For the graphical appearance of the game we settled to a low-poly look. All graphics were created and animated in Cinema4D.
Thus, we achieved a homogeneous overall appearance. The in Cinema4D modelled 3D-Bodies and their realistic shadow give the players the illusion that they move through a 3-dimensional space, despite playing a game which only
represents a 2-dimensional projection.
Furthermore, we simulate a sunset by overlapping multiple images with, over time, changing opacity, which were rendered with different lighting.
To make the game world more dynamic, the clouds in the background of the game world move to the right during the game.
The entire game was programmed in Javascript using the box2d library, which is responsible for the dynamic physics simulation. The in Cinema4D created animations were integrated in the game using sprites and animated with a self-created class. The cannonball is made with a box2D „Circle“ object, to witch a pulse is applied immediately after its creation.
For player input, we designed two controllers that have four buttons. Two arrow keys for moving the character left and right and an A- and B-button for interacting with the objects of the game world. Use the A-button to break down the boulders in the mine, pick up items, steal blocks from the enemy’s tower and to adjust the cannon’s angle. The B-button is used to adjust the strength of the cannon shot.
Inside the controller there is a MakeyMakey which processes the input of the player. The controller was designed with Tinkercad, a free, browser-based CAD software from Autodesk. Subsequently, the controller was 3d-printed with white filament. The buttons with engraved letters and arrows, were printed with red filament. All in all, there were four iterations of controller prototypes until we found our final design.
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