CIS 487 Pitch Early Draft Paul Gruenke Ed Malinowski

The Dark Magus has kidnapped the much Beloved Heir to the Kingdom and is holding the entire land at ransom for their continued safety. Despite the valiant attempts by Knights and Wizards alike to scale the mountainous dark tower of the Evil Magus, none have succeeded in scaling its many floors and reaching the top to face off against the fiend and rescues the Heir. Three months have passed and the deadline for the surrender of the kingdom draws close. A young mage approaches the tower gates. He is armed with the mythic Medallion of Defense - a magic item that allows one to turn his opponents attacks back on them regardless of how powerful the foe may be. Armed with the Medallion and his courage, the youth sets out to defeat the Master of the Dark Arts and save the kingdom.

This game is a significant modification to the traditional Breakout-type game, but it keeps these aspects the same: Player reflects balls into the playing field The ball collides with objects in the field for level completion Objects in the field are “destroyed” upon collision More primitive 2D look and feel Single player

Differences: Mage Wars vs. Breakout The player’s character will be on the top instead of the traditional bottom. The “paddle” is replaced by reflecting spells from the left, right, or center from a keyboard action instead being a static bar. Instead of just bricks to destroy, enemy sprites will be in the play field and destroying them will be the objective. Bricks will still exist as barricades to the enemies Balls will emanate from the enemy sprites, and there will be multiple balls on the screen at once. Due to the addition of multiple balls, the player’s lose condition will be time based rather than keeping the ball from reaching behind the paddle. If time permits, a player health system may also be implemented

Playing field appearance Standard one-screen tower floors Character Sprites The hero sprite will be on the top Hero A row of bricks representing barricades will stand before you and the enemy sprites Evil MageOrc Sprites may move around a bit on the screen (time pending) All sprites in the final version may differ from these drafts

Your mage is the only person who can withstand the evil magic, so the player must reflect the evil magic back at the enemies. Each stage consists of enemy sprites firing a barrage of balls into the playing field Your mage must reflect these projectiles with his spells(paddle) back into the play field The spells can reflect in multiple directions

Left/Right movement: Arrow Keys Swing wand left: ‘Z’ key Swing wand middle: ‘X’ key Swing wand right: ‘C’

Motivations: The object of each level is to quickly reflect back the balls to knock out all of the enemy sprites. All enemy sprites must be eliminated in the time allocated for that level When the ball collides with a brick or enemy sprite, that object is destroyed (like in regular breakout) Strategies: Balls that reach the bottom of the playing field behind the enemies are lost – player should try different reflections and positions to hit the balls at the enemies Balls that reach the top behind the hero do not cause the player to lose like in regular breakout – player should not worry about hitting every ball back

Each level increases the number of sprites and bricks involved. This concept represents your mage’s struggle taking on more and more of the tower. Example: Level 1- One row of bricks and one enemy orc to eliminate Level 2 – Two rows of bricks and three enemy orcs Level 3 – Three rows of bricks, five enemy orcs and one evil mage enemy Level 4 – Four rows of bricks, five enemy orcs and three evil mage enemies Level 5 - Formal boss type scenario (time pending)

Development Hardware OS: Windows Vista Ultimate CPU: 3.0Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Memory: 4GB Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 512MB Recommended Hardware OS: Windows XP CPU: 1Ghz Memory: 1GB Video Card: 128 MB

Visual Studio 2008 Professional Microsoft Paint DirectX 9 C++ coding language Lamothe T3 Libraries

2D 3 rd Person arcade style Sprite animations One non-scrolling full screen per level La Mothe code examples and libraries

Sprites: CharasProject – Online Resource Generators