How to Make a Computer Game (the Easy Way) An Introduction to 3 rd -Person Perspective Game Creation Software Jonathan Martin

Introduction What 3 rd -person perspective is –As opposed to 1 st person (Doom) Show a video an actual game in 3 rd person perspective (NWN?) Examples of games –Famous ones and recent!

Game Development Write from scratch Use middleware package Modify existing game engine Specialized game construction software Genre-specific construction software Programming intensive less Free Restrictive Doom, Source (Half Life), Unreal Game Maker, Torque 2D RPG Maker XP, AGS, NWN Renderware more Trade-offs of the two extremes

Genre-Specific Construction Software No Need to Reinvent the Wheel Requires the least amount of programming Tend to have the nicest user interfaces This all comes at the expense of freedom

Adventure Game Studio What can you do with it? –Adventure games (“point-and-click”) –2D only –Can import art –Descriptive Meaningful play Example games –Maniac mansion (remake) –King’s quest (remake)

Adventure Game Studio Easily create point-and-click interfaces Extra- feat (but not required): “C-like” scripting language for advanced functions Lucasarts-style conversation system should you want to use it. Supports wide variety of file types –Audio: OGG, MP3, WAV, MOD, XM, MIDI –Video: BMP, PCX, PNG, GIF, TGA Distribute your game on Windows, Linux or OSX (Mac)

Adventure Game Studio Supports a multitude of display modes –320x200, 320x240, 640x400, 640x480, 800x600 –256-color, 16-bit color and 32-bit color –Anti-aliasing and alpha blending supported in certain modes Inventory Support Built-In Plugin System for Advanced Users

Adventure Game Studio Demo –What is going to be shown? And create a room –What we are going to do?

RPG Maker XP What can you do with it? –Adventure games (“point-and-click”) –2D only –Can import art –Descriptive Meaningful play Example games –Maniac mansion (remake) –King’s quest (remake)

Also see… RPG Maker XP Create 2D tile-based RPG’s Point and Click interface similar to AGS Also has databases for Monsters, Weapons, Items, Stats, Characters, Skills…just about anything you’ve seen in a 16-bit era RPG

Now Let’s Get a Little More Advanced… Game Maker Room/object paradigm Doesn’t have built- in functions like RPG Maker and AGS Simple but powerful scripting language

Neverwinter Nights Aurora Toolkit Create RPG scenarios in the 3D Neverwinter Nights engine Possible to create original content, but requires a lot of work Also see…

NVW a.htmlhttp://nwn.bioware.com/players/profile_uof a.html Talk about its popularity: estimate of number of games created Mention the U. Alberta thing

NVW Example scenario

Remember… 3D graphics not necessary!! Use the tools you are most comfortable with, not what you believe is inherently “better” Small amount of programming knowledge still required Test your game as you are making it— Iterative Design!

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