Master's Degree Final Thesis - Part 2: Ninja Tales 3D

This post is the continuation of the final thesis of 2007/2008 academic year. For more information, see first post.

This second part is focused on the 3D side of the game.

Again, since it is a proof of concept developed for a degree with a really technical background, features such as the story, music or graphic design were not contemplated.

The video begins with the characters entering a city. In this town everything has been designed manually, implementing various 3D techniques (detailed at the end of this entry).

The characters can perform various actions in the cities.



The actions performed in the video are the following:
- Talk to various characters in the game (such as turtles or people).
- Collect equipment (such as the jacket that is taken from the ground).
- Collect objects to be used once they are equipped (as the book picked up from the shelf inside the house).
- Activation / deactivation of second player (The relative movements of both characters can be seen when the screen is split).
- Use of certain objects (throwable weapons that can be seen on both screens, objects that potentiate skills or healing objects).
- Although the battles were not fully developed, a random battle system was implemented, as well as the appearance of random scenarios and enemies on the battlefields).

The techniques used in 3D are the following:
- Inclusion of 2D images in 3D design.
- SkyBox.
- Insertion of rugged terrain based on a terrain map.
- Camera tracking for each character.
- Insertion of static models. These models may or may not be animated or be able to move.
- Control of collisions.
- Use of various character animations (such as hit, jump, bend, etc.).
- Collect items and store them in various places (depending on the type of object).
- Been able to use absolute objects (such as potions that always increase the same amount of life) or relative (elements that rise a certain percentage given a current level of a certain skill).
- 3D throwable objects.
- Tracking mode of the second character.
- Enable/Disable of the second character.
- Split screen mode.

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Master's Degree Final Thesis - Part 1: Ninja Tales 2D

This project was presented as a final thesis in the academic year of 2007/2008.

The project consisted of two parts:
- A proof of concept of a RPG videogame in 2D and 3D. This game was developed for the Xbox 360 and PC.
- A hardware device that has a connection to the XBOX 360 platform, which allows the player to use the Wii remote as a game controller (given its versatility and easy handling).

This entry is focused on the 2D side of the game. Since it is a proof of concept developed for a degree with a really technical background, features such as the story, music or graphic design were not contemplated.

The game has a 2D map where the character can choose to explore either on foot or by car. When the character is on foot, he won’t walk very fast, and he will encounter random battles with enemies along the way. When the character is driving the car, he will go faster and random battles will not appear.

The character can check out a general map with his position in the world. The battles with the enemies take place in a 3D world and they will not be displayed in this video.

Additionally, the player can configure the two characters of the game (being the blue and the red ninja). They have a basic equipment and objects such as throwable objects or potions.

The basic equipment consists of the three sections below:
- Offensive: Usually weapons of all sorts that enhance the ninja’s offensive ability.
- Defensive: Usually some sort of clothing (jackets or breastplates) that enhances the defensive ability of the character.
- Belt: This special device allows objects to be equipped either from the menu or from the main screen of the game (the belt is on the right hand side). Items such as potions can be use from the menu screen even if they have not been previously equipped.

As there are different kinds of belts, the number of objects that a ninja can equip depends on the number of slots that the equipped belt has. The maximum number of slots possible is six. The objects to be fitted can be of three types:
- Different sorts of healing potions.
- Throwable weapons.
- Potency of some characteristic (such as intelligence, defense, attack, etc.)

The game can only be saved in the map screen (not in cities). The position map is always available doesn’t matter whether the character is inside or outside the car. It shows the position of all elements (not just that of the main character).

The techniques used in 2D are the following:
- Principle of persistence of vision (for animations).
- Principle of relativity (for relative positioning objects).
- Map of inverse collisions (to delimit regions).
- Map of the position of relative objects (such as the car).
- System of randomness to start battles.
- Darkening FADINGS (direct and inverse).
- FADINGS of translation (forward and backward).
- Management of dynamic or static text to make it selectable or disable it.
- Management of games (on PC and XBOX 360) to save or overwrite.
- Ability to change player menu.

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Cell Wars! The game

“Cell Wars!” is a platform-puzzle game that was developed in less than one month to participate in a Non Smoking video game contest organised by the government. With “Cell Wars!” we were awarded the third place.

The contest consisted of developing a video game which theme was "Quit Smoking", and that was the only restriction.

“Cell Wars!” was developed using the XNA 3.0 framework, it is a 2D video game that runs in Xbox 360, Zune and PC.

It tells the story of an apocalyptic future in which people are dying from smoking and its effects. To fight it, scientists have created a new type of stem cell. THis stem cell has been altered so that it is able to behave as four different types of cells: red cell, nerve cell, platelet and sarcoma. The game takes place in the lungs of a person that is dying of lung cancer, and the player will switch between these four types of cells to fight it.

In order to finish each phase successfully, the player has to collect all the nicotine patches in the lungs and all enemies have to be killed. The enemies are know as carbon monoxide, tar and nicotine.

Every time the player finishes a phase successfully, the person gets better, which means the lungs get healthier (their background gets lighter) and the person does not cough as much. Additionally, the player will learn about the dangers of smoking at the end of each phase. The status of the lung cance is displayer every time the game is saved.

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