Computer Games

1
Computer Games Rolf Lakaemper, Dept. of CIS,
Temple University
2
About me

• PhD in Mathematics 2000
• Assist. Prof. at CIS Temple since 2002
• 1985 Co-founder of Germanys first computer game
  company magic bytes

3
History of Computer Games
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History of Computer Games
In the beginning there was parts of the slides
are copied from http//www.designboom.com/eng/educ
ation/pong.html and http//www.gamespot.com/games
pot/features/video/hov/
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History of Computer Games
Not too much. (Is Pinball a computer game ?)
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History of Computer Games
Computer Game Webster-Dictionary.com A
game played against a computer
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History of Computer Games
Lets change the definition to A game
controlled by an electronic device and we
get the first known computer game
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History of Computer Games
The name as creative as the game seems exciting
today Tennis for two (1958)
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History of Computer Games
The creator, the worlds first computer game
programmer(?), described as a
chain-smoking,fun-loving character and
self-confessed pinball player (http//www.design
boom.com/eng/education/pong.html)
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History of Computer Games
and also a scientist at Brookhaven National
Laboratory, a US nuclear research lab in Upton,
New York William S. Higinbotham
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History of Computer Games

• Invented in an effort to keep visitors to the
  Brookhaven National Laboratories in New York from
  being bored
• table-tennis-like game that is displayed on an
  oscilloscope
• No CPU, all discrete circuits (analog)
• Believing that he hasn't invented anything,
  Higinbotham doesn't patent the device

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History of Computer Games
A bit more sophisticated Spacewar! (1962)
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History of Computer Games
The programmers a group of hard core computer
nerds at MIT calling themselves the tech model
railroad club Wayne Witanen and J. Martin
Graetz,along with 25 year-old Steve Russell as
main programmer, they develop the idea to pit two
spaceships with limited fuel supplies against
each other in a missile duel.
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History of Computer Games

• The Hardware
• DEC PDP-1
• Worlds first transistor based computer
• Output Device small round monitor that can
  display up to 12 characters per line
• Size like refrigerator
• Cost 120.000

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History of Computer Games
spacewar! wasnt patented either, its game
concept is one of the most copied concepts ever
(asteroids etc.)
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History of Computer Games
The first REAL computer game console The
Magnavox Odyssey (1972)
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History of Computer Games
The Inventor Another tech freak Ralph Baer
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History of Computer Games

• The Hardware
• No CPU, no memory
• Discrete Circuits

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History of Computer Games

• Games on cartridges, which actually were jumpers,
  which means you need just a little piece of metal
  to copy these games, lucky days for hackers !

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History of Computer Games

• Input Device paddles (analog !)

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History of Computer Games

• Graphics Stunning !
• The Odyssey only generates white dots or blocks
  on the television.
• To give the games some sort of setting, plastic
  screens (overlays) are stuck to the television
  using static cling.

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History of Computer Games

• Eleven different overlays came with the Odyssey,
  in two sizes each. The smaller set was for
  18-inch to 21-inch screens, the larger set fit
  23-inch to 25-inch screens.
• Included overlays were for Tennis, Football,
  and the best known Simon Says. Also Table
  Tennis, which did not use an overlay.

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History of Computer Games
The Arcade Nolan Bushnell, the Zeus of the
videogame industry, becomes convinced of the
commercial viability of a videogamelike
'spacewar', if only the system that ran it could
be scaled down from universitymainframes and
into a more reasonably compact version. he begins
an eight yearodyssey to do just that produce an
arcade version of 'spacewar'.
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History of Computer Games
The Result Nutting Associates
Computer Space
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History of Computer Games
1972 Bushnell co-founded the ATARI corporation,
first game PONG
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History of Computer Games

• 1975 Pong becomes Home TV based game
• in 1974 atari employees propose a home version of
  'pong',able to be hooked up to any tv set.
• in 1975 they cut a deal to sell the system under
  the sears tele-games label. the order is for
  150,000 units
• bushnell has nowhere near the facilities to
  produce thatmany in the time sears wants them,
  so he taps a venture capitalist for a 10 million
  line-of-credit to expand. by christmas, atari's
  US100 home 'pong' console becomes sears biggest
  selling item, with reports of people waiting
  outside stores for hours to get one.
• dozens of manufacturers swarm out with myriad
  versions of home 'pong games. almost all of
  these machines are based on the new
  'pong-on-a-chip' circuit developed by general
  instruments (here comes the big industry !).

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History of Computer Games

• Some more names
• in 1972 Steve Jobs becomes an Atari employee.
• Jobs starts sneaking his good friend Steve
  Wozniak into the factory after hours for long
  playing marathons on the arcade machines.
• N. Bushnell wants the young Jobs to put together
  the hardware for 'breakout', yet another
  variation on 'pong. The game sports a black and
  white display, utilizing the old pre -1980
  colored overlays on the screen to simulate color.

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History of Computer Games

• S. Wozniak builds the machine 1976. The wayhis
  computer designs would introduce color to the
  worldof personal computers stems directly from
  his work on thearcade game.
• he uses his version of basic language to
  manipulate hiscomputer version of 'breakout',
  and is amazed how powerfula tool software is in
  creating games.
• later jobs approaches boss bushnell with the idea
  that ataricould produce the computer but with
  the new home 'pong'unit and looming financial
  problems already on his plate,bushnell passes on
  the project.jobs leaves atari soon after, and he
  helps himself to someelectronics that eventually
  end up integrated into the prototypecomputer woz
  and jobs create under the auspices of their
  newlyfounded APPLE computer company.

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History of Computer Games
End of part I of the historical overview
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Breakout
Lets go back to 1982 Your task Design
Breakout (on which machine ?)
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Spectrum
Hardware Sinclair Spectrum 16K
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Spectrum
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Spectrum
Copy from Sinclair Promotion Brochure Profession
al power . . . more capacity . . . personal
computer price! The power of the Sinclair ZX
Spectrum comes from a new 16K BASIC ROM . So, in
addition to the features of the ZX81, the ZX
Spectrum gives you a full 8 colours, a sound
generator, high-resolution graphics and many
other features - including the facility to
support separate datafiles. The storage
capacity of any computer is governed by the
amount of RAM. The ZX Spectrum comes in two
versions - with 16K, or a really massive 48K, of
RAM. Yet even the 48K RAM version costs only 175
compared to 125 for the 16K RAM model.
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Spectrum
Copy from Sinclair Promotion Brochure A growing
system Your ZX Spectrum comes with a mains
adaptor, all the necessary leads to connect to
most cassette recorders and TVs (colour or black
and white), and two manuals. If you're new to
computing, you'll find both manuals of immense
help. Together, they represent a course in
BASIC programming from first principles to
advanced techniques. But if you already have
experience of computers, you can skip much of the
groundwork, and move straight into the colourful
world of ZX Spectrum professional-level
computing.
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Spectrum
Lets have a closer look at these promising
machine full 8 colors well, 2 out of 8
colors per 8x8 block of pixels. Screen
resolution 256 128 What does this mean for
the graphics ?
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Spectrum
Some images of Spectrum games
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Spectrum
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Spectrum
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Spectrum
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Spectrum
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Spectrum
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Spectrum
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Spectrum
Theres a JAVA spectrum emulator
at http//www.spectrum.lovely.net/
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Spectrum
Back to the promises Sound generator a
beeper, directly connected to an I/O port of the
CPU What does that mean for sound design ?
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Spectrum
The sounds on the spectrum tell stories about
the creativity of programmers, thats for sure.
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Spectrum
The next promise Massive 48k The first games
had to be designed for 16K, since the basic
machine just had 16K. This includes the graphics
screen, being 7K alone. What does this mean for
the game design ?
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Spectrum
another promise mass storage its a tape
recorder. Not even a floppy disc. Game design ?
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Spectrum
The final promise BASIC Thats a language
not being especially useful for games. It had to
be kicked out of the machine.
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Spectrum
Before we think about Technics and
Design lets first have a look at different game
genres.
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Game Genres
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Genres

ADVENTURES
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Genres

• Adventure Games cast the player as the
  protagonist of a story in which the player
  participates
• Solving of puzzles, finding various artifacts
• Sub-genres
• Textbased
• Graphical
• Action

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Genres

• Textbased Adventures
• First adventures
• Typical use of verb-noun phraser
• Earliest titles Hunt the Wumpus (G. Yob, 1972,
  Basic Game) and Adventure (W. Crowther, 1972)

54
Genres

Hunt the Wumpus Essentially, you're wandering
through a network of numbered caves, looking for
the Wumpus when it's nearby, you'll smell it,
and you can try to kill it by shooting into one
of the caves that's near you. If you wander into
the same cave as the Wumpus, you die. Other
hazards include bats--which pick you up and dump
you somewhere else--and pits, which kill
you. source code !
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Genres

or ZORK (1981)
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Genres

Hybrid Text / Graphic The Hobbit
(1982) spectrum emulator
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Genres

• Graphic Adventure
• Graphical (point and click) Interface
• Introduced by Sierra Onlines Kings Quest 1984
• Lucas Arts Maniac Mansion 1987

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Genres

Kings Quest I (by Roberta Williams)
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Genres

• Action Adventure
• The only commercially successfully remaining
  action genre
• Reflex Based as well as puzzle solving
• Most prominent The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo,
  1986 (US 1987 on NES)

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Genres

Legend of Zelda, NES 1987
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Genres

Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker, Game Cube 2004
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Genres

• Educational Games
• Attempt to teach the user using the game as a
  vehicle
• Mostly target young users
• Growing market !
• can also teach programming on a very high though
  entertaining level, e.g. Robot Wars
• Best known Carmen Sandiego

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Genres

• Example Alpha Beth 1985
• PLAY

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Genres

• Fighting (Beatem Up)
• Emphasize on one-on-one combat between (two)
  players
• Usually focus on martial arts
• Usually as dramatic and physically impossible as
  comical
• Sophisticated interfaces !
• Early title Way of the exploding fist,
  Melbourne House 1985 PLAY!

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Genres

Way of the exploding fist, Melbourne House
1985, Sinclair Spectrum Version
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Genres

Mortal Combat Deadly Alliance, Midway,2002,
XBOX
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Genres

• First Person Shooter
• Emphasize shooting and combat from a specific
  perspective, most of them place player behind
  hand/weapon
• Tend to be scaringly violent
• 3D effect is usually enhanced by 3D-sound
• Most prominent DOOM, Quake, HALO
• First title

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Genres

• SPASIM, 1974
• Space Simulation
• 3D 32 person network multiplayer game
• Written for Champaign Urbana University of
  Illinois PLATO network
• The PLATO system had hundreds of plasma panel
  terminals (512512 graphics displays) around the
  US with 1200bps connections into a CDC Cyber 6400
  mainframe

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Genres

• Battlezone, ATARI, 1980

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Genres

• Rescue on Fractalus
• Activision,1986, Spectrum Version

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Genres

• DOOM
• Id software,1993

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Genres

• HALO
• Xbox,Bungie Studios,2001

73
Genres

• FPS introduced a new technique to game
  programming 3D engines, independent from game
  rules, logic and final graphics are utilized for
  multiple games
• FPS are the most controversive games, due to
  their realism and violence, e.g. the Columbine
  Highschool Shooting was put in connection with
  them
• The combination of AI, real time graphics,
  physical modelling makes them the most
  sophisticated programs the gaming area

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Genres

• MMOGs
• (Massive Multiplayer Online Games)
• Subscription based virtual worlds for thousands
  of players to interact together
• Titles Ultima Online, Everquest etc.

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Genres

Everquest
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Genres

• Platform Games
• Probably the best known genre, the computer
  game
• Running, jumping etc. on 2D or 3D platform
• Side-scrollers, usually (2d) from a side
  perspective.
• Most prominent Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong, Lode
  Runner, Sonic,

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Genres

Jumpman 1983, ATARI 400
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Genres

Donkey Kong Nintendo, 1981
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Genres

Mario Bros Nintendo, 1983
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Genres

Super Mario Bros Nintendo, 1985
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Genres

Mission Elevator Micro Partner/Magic Bytes 1986
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Genres

Mission Elevator (Graphics by Bettina Wiedner)
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Genres

Donkey Kong Country 2 Game Cube, 2003
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Genres

Super Mario Sunshine Nintendo Game Cube, 2002
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Genres

• PUZZLE Games
• Require the gamer to solve logic puzzles or
  navigate complex locations such as mazes.
• Genre crosses frequently with adventure and
  educational games
• Titles Tetris, Sokoban, Boulderdash,

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Genres

Tetris 1985 Alexey Pazhitnov, Vadim Gerasimov
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Genres

Boulderdash 1987 Databyte
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Genres

• RACING GAMES
• Place player in the driver seat of vehicle
• Emerging in early 80s
• Extremely popular
• Various input devices
• Titles OutRun, MarioKart,

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Genres

OutRun SEGA, 1986
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Genres

MarioKart Double Dash Nintendo, 2004
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Genres

• Role Playing
• Player acts as adventurer who specializes in
  certain skills
• Emerged from board (pencilpaper) role playing
  games
• Usually science fiction or fantasy setting
• Titles Ultima, Diablo,

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Genres

• ULTIMA 1
• 1980
• Written in basic
• 3000 lines of code
• Memory takes less than one texture in current
  version

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Genres

ULTIMA 1, 1980
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Genres

ULTIMA 9, 1999
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Genres

• Fixed Shooters
• The classic 2D shooters
• Space Invaders, Galaga, R-Type,

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Genres

Space Invaders Galaga
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Genres

• Simulation
• Aim to simulate a specific activity (e.g. flying
  an airplane / running a company) as realistically
  as possible
• Usually time consuming to play, huge manuals etc.
• Titles Little Comp. People, MS Flight Sim., The
  Sims, Medieval,Warcraft,
• The SIMS is the most popular game ever !

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Genres

Little Computer People Activision, 1985, C64
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Genres

The SIMS Bill Wright,Maxis, 2000
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Genres

Sports Sports simulation, of course.
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Genres

Winter Games EPYX, 1983,C64
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Genres

• Strategy
• Focus on careful planning and skillful resource
  management
• Thinking games
• Often turn based
• Usually war strategy
• Titles M.U.L.E., Civilization, War Craft,

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Genres
M.U.L.E EA, 1983

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Genres

• Civilization 1
• Sid Meier, Microprose,1991, DOS

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Genres

• WarCraft III
• Blizzard, 2003, PC

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Genres

• Traditional
• Board Games
• Card Games
• ETC

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Genres

• Requirements of Genres
• Hardware
• Computational power
• Graphical abilities (color, resolution)
• Graphic. comp. Power (Co-processing graphic
  cards)
• Memory
• Sound
• Input / output devices

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Genres

• Software
• AI
• Physical Modelling
• Sophisticated Data Structures

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Genres

• Design
• Story
• Playability
• User Interface
• Realism

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Genres

AD T AD G AD A Edu FIGHT FPS MMOG PLATF PUZZLE RACING RPG FXDSH SIM SPORTS STRAT TRAD
Comp. power
Graphic. abilities
Graphic. Comp. power
Memory
Sound
Special I/O devices
AI
Physical Modelling
Sophisticated Data Structures
Story
User Interface
Realism
X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X
X X X X X X
X X X X X X X
X X X X X
X X X X X X X X ?
X X X X X X
X X X X X X X ?
X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X ?
PLAYABILITY
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Genres

Which genre is the easiest to design and program

112
Genres

and who is involved in the design process ?
113
Genres

• Game design
• Programmer
• Program Design
• Visual Design
• Audio Design
• Storyline
• Business Management

114
Genres

In the early days Usually a one man/woman show.
The most charming games are those where the
programmer also made the graphics
115
Genres

Today Break down every little aspect of game
design until you have highly specialized people.
116
Game Industry
Some numbers out of the world of the Game
Industry (source www.gamasutra.com)

117
Game Industry

• Mission Elevator
• Publisher Magic Bytes
• Number of full-time developers 0
• Number of part-time developers 3
• Length of development 14 months
• Release date 1985
• Target platform Amstrad CPC, C64
• Development hardware Amstrad CPC, C64
• Development software used Paper and Pencil,
  selfmade assembling help, some BASIC tools
• Project size 48kB
• Budget 10.000 (for conversion to diff. Systems)

118
Game Industry

• Grand Monster Slam
• Publisher Magic Bytes/Rainbow Arts
• Number of full-time developers 6
• Number of part-time developers 1
• Length of development 8 months
• Release date 1989
• Target platform AMIGA, ATARI ST, C64
• Development hardware proprietary ATARI ST
  connected to AMIGA
• Development software used Graphic Tools, SEKA
  Assembler
• Project size 4MB
• Budget 100.000

119
Game Industry

• SPLINTER CELL
• Publisher Ubi Soft
• Number of full-time developers 76
• Number of contractors18
• Length of development 5 months
• Release date March 28, 2003
• Target platform PlayStation 2
• Development hardware PS2 dev tools, PCs avg.
• Athlon dual 1800
• Development software used Unreal Warfare, Code
  Warrior, 3D Max, Photoshop, Ubi's animation
  tools, Optpix, Microsoft Visual SourceSafe
• Project size 3.47GB
• Budget ?

120
Game Industry

• STAR WARS Rogue Leader
• Publisher Lucas Arts Entertainment
• Number of full-time developers 30
• Number of contractors 2
• Estimated budget 3.5 million
• Length of development 9 months
• Release date November 8, 2001
• Platform Nintendo Gamecube
• Development hardware used GDEV 1GHz PC,
  running Windows 2000
• Development software used SN Systems for
  Gamecube, Slickedit, Maya
• Notable technologies MusyX 2.0
• Project size 14.2MB of source in 859 files,
  in-game source data 6.4GB in 10,075 files

121
Game Industry

• DIABLO 2
• Publisher Blizzard Entertainment
• Full-Time Developers 40
• Length of Development 3 years.
• Release Date June 28, 2000.
• Platforms PC and Macintosh.
• Hardware Used Typical programmer workstation
  500 MHz Pentium II running Windows NT with 128MB
  RAM and 9GB hard drive. Typical artist
  workstation dual 500 MHz Pentium IIs running
  Windows NT with 256MB RAM and 14GB hard drive.
• Software Used 3D Studio Max, Photoshop,
  Microsoft Developer Studio/Visual Studio and
  SourceSafe

122
Game Industry

• DIABLO 2
• From Diablo2 what went wrong
• (http//www.gamasutra.com/features/20001025/schaef
  er_03.htm)
• We developed the original Diablo with almost no
  proprietary tools at all. We cut out all the
  background tiles by hand and used commercial
  software to process the character art. Spells and
  monsters were balanced by verbal estimates ("Hey,
  lets make the lightning about ten percent
  weaker."). Diablo II's vastly increased scale
  required much better tools, and we made some, but
  not enough.

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Game Industry

• Whats in for
• YOU ?

124
Game Industry

• Salary Survey 2003
• (from GAME DEVELOPER Magazine)
• websourcehttp//www.gamasutra.com/features/200402
  11/olsen_01.shtml
• Questioning among GAME DEVELOPER subscribers
• About 2750 responses used for survey
• Excluded lt10.000, gt300.000

125
Game Industry

Programming
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Game Industry

Art Animation
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Game Industry

Game Design
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Genres

Technical Challenges TODAY
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Genres

The game industry seems to feed the demand for
REALISTIC games only. Reality ? What is that ?
130
Genres

Lets call this effect Cinema Envy
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Genres

Lets call this effect Cinema Envy It causes
the need for correct physical simulation,
utilizing science and especially math to the
highest possible degree. instead of creativity
and esprit pedantry and accuracy
132
Genres

Some examples of techniques behind games today
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Genres

Example 1 Terrain Generation
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Genres

Since the level of detail and the diversity of
the environments the games are set in, hand drawn
techniques are impossible. Environments are
either scanned, hence direct copies of existing
environments, or computed, e.g. by Fractal
Models
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FRACTAL LANDSCAPES
136
What ?

What are we talking about ?
137
What ?

Heightfield Terrain A 2D grid system of height
values, defining a 3d landscape
138
What ?

Fractal extremely irregular curves or shapes
for which any suitably chosen part is similar in
shape to a given larger or smaller part when
magnified or reduced to the same size Main
characteristic Self Similarity
139
What ?

Self Similarity
140
What ?

Self Identity Von Koch Snowflake
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Fractals

Von Koch Snowflake It makes sense to define its
dimensionality BETWEEN one and two !
142
Fractals

Since we only want to use fractals, lets go
straight to algorithms Algorithms for Random
Fractals
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Fractals

We will use MIDPOINT DISPLACEMENT
144
Fractals

A 1D example to draw a mountain Start with a
single horizontal line segment. Repeat for a
sufficiently large number of times Repeat
over each line segment in the scene Find the
midpoint of the line segment. Displace the
midpoint in Y by a random amount. Reduce the
range for random numbers.
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Fractals

Result
146
Fractals

Result
147
Fractals

Extension to 2 dimensions The Diamond
Square Algorithm (by Fournier, Fussel,
Carpenter)
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Fractals

Data Structure Square Grid
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Diamond Square

The basic idea Start with an empty 2D array of
points. To make it easy, it should be square, and
the dimension should be a power of two, plus one
(e.g. 33x33). Set the four corner points to the
same height value. You've got a square.
150
Diamond Square

This is the starting-point for the iterative
subdivision routine, which is in two steps
The diamond step Take the square of four
points, generate a random value at the square
midpoint, where the two diagonals meet. The
midpoint value is calculated by averaging the
four corner values, plus a random amount. This
gives you diamonds when you have multiple squares
arranged in a grid.
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Diamond Square

Step 2 The square step Taking each diamond of
four points, generate a random value at the
center of the diamond. Calculate the midpoint
value by averaging the corner values, plus a
random amount generated in the same range as used
for the diamond step. This gives you squares
again.
152
Diamond Square

This is done repeatedly, but the next pass is
different from the previous one in two ways.
First, there are now four squares instead of one.
Second, and this is main point the range for
generating random numbers has been reduced by a
scaling factor r, e.g. r 1/4 (remember the
fractal dimension ?)
153
Diamond Square

Again
154
Diamond Square

Some steps taken from http//www.gameprogrammer.c
om/fractal.htmlmidpoint
155
Diamond Square

156
Diamond Square

157
Technical Challenges Today

Example 2 Collision Detection
158
Genres
Technical Challenges Today

159
What ?
The problem The search for intersecting
planes of different 3D models in a scene.
Collision Detection is an important problem in
fields like computer animation, virtual reality
and game programming.

160
Intro
The problem can be defined as if, where and
when two objects intersect.

161
Bounding Volumes
Idea Bounding Volumes Reduce complexity of
collision computation by substitution of the
(complex) original object with a simpler object
containing the original one.

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Bounding Volumes

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Bounding Volumes
Part 2 Collision on different
scales Hierarchies

164
Hierarchies
Idea To achieve higher exactness in collision
detection, build a multiscale BV representation
of the object

165
Hierarchies

166
Hierarchies

167
Hierarchies

168
Hierarchies

169
Hierarchies

170
Technical Challenges
The biggest challenge AI

171
Technical Challenges
The question about AI is the question about the
linearity of storylines. The topic Fully
pre-programmed behaviour of computer controlled
actors (static scripting) vs. dynamic rule driven
program control. Current games have a mix with
surprising effects !

172
AI The Game of Life
Game programming and creation of life affecting
software is about to join. Topics Robotics and
Simulation

173
Game-AI, Robots and the Real World
174
What ?

Especially in Game AI, the boundary between pure
gaming and real world applications is very fuzzy.
175
What ?

The following will give one example for an AI
topic that is can be used in classical gaming,
i.e. virtual worlds, but then makes the step to
gaming in the real world (whatever that is !) to
finally have a serious application far away from
gaming !
176
Classical Gaming

• The SOAR Quakebot
• (John Laird, University of Michigan)
• Human Like expert computer player designed to
  play Quake II deathmatch
• Main goal simulation of human behaviour in
  games
• Adding anticipation to classical AI behaviour
• Built on SOAR, best to be described as AI
  engine

177
Classical Gaming
Soar Quakebot Interface

• Soar reasoning code runs on a separate computer
• Socket I/O code communicates perceptions and
  actions between the game and Soar

Game Computer
Soar Reasoning Computer
178
Classical Gaming

• SOAR controls a single player
• The perceptual information and motor commands
  available to the bot are similar to those
  available to a human
• To navigate a level, the bot explores it building
  a map based on range data to the walls

179
Real World Games

Where do we need realistic behaviour in gaming
? In real world gaming, of course.
180
Real World Games
Example ROBOCUP Soccer

181
Real World Games


182
Real World Games


183
Real World Games


184
Real World Games


185
Real World Games
Or a bit more serious ROBOCUP Rescue The
attempt to build (autonomous) robots to rescue
humans

186
Real World Games
The NIST Test Arenas (National Institute of
Standards and Technology)

187
Real World Games

188
Real World Games
The Orange Arena

189
Real World Games
The Red Arena

190
Real World Games
The scoring system of the game of rescue

191
Real World Application
Its not a game robots deployed at the world
trade center after 9/11

192
Real World Application

• WTC
• Robots were non autonomous
• Problem limited view of camera makes it hard to
  operate
• Automatic map building is crucial to operate
  robots and to memorize path to victims even if
  robot is not autonomous !

193
Real World
Map building to play the game , the
environment must be percepted in an appropriate
way. The robots now adopt to our world, no
artificial environments needed. The boundary
between the worlds gets fuzzy

194
Final questions

Some questions to think and discuss
195
Questions
What was / is the driving force in game design
? Which topic in game design do the technical
limitations affect most ? Did games today
overcome the limitations ? Storylines did/do
they enable or limit the players imagination
? Who was / is in control of the game ? The
Player ? What is / was the degree of freedom in
storylines ? Which dimensionality do they have
? Does game playing enhance your imagination ?
Your quality of life? Does game design enhance
your life ? Is technical progress needed for
that, or does technical progress even limit the
imagination ? What is needed today to have
good game design ?