CIS 350

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CIS 350 I Game Programming Instructor Rolf
Lakaemper
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Part II 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)

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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

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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 Well, 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
?
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Game Industry
Some numbers out of the world of the Game
Industry (source www.gamasutra.com)

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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)

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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

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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 ?

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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

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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

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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 ?

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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

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Game Industry

Programming
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Game Industry

Art Animation
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Game Industry

Game Design