A Puzzling Game Idea

1
A Puzzling Game Idea

• Joshua Torrijos
• CS 470 Project Presentation

2
Inspiration

• Tetris
• Memory
• Simon handheld game

3
System Overview

• Goals
• Make something fun to pickup and play during
  downtime.
• Easy to learn
• Learn C and DirectX
• Why I chose this project
• A large portion of games developed for the
  Windows environment uses DirectX
• Interested in the game design process and in
  playing games in general

4
Simon Blocks Game Rules

• 3x3 Playing Grid
• Each grid cell can display one selectable object
  at a time
• Game starts by indicating the order that the
  objects must be selected
• Timer begins and the player must complete the
  same sequence before time runs out

5
Simon Blocks Game Rules II

• If a player messes up during his sequence, then
  he must retry the sequence from the beginning
• Bonus points are awarded upon level completion
  based upon the time left
• If the timer reaches zero then the game is over

6
Simon Blocks Extended Game Rules

• Subsequent levels will increase in difficulty
• Longer sequences to memorize
• Shifting puzzle block pieces that disappear and
  reappear onscreen
• 2 Player Component
• Simultaneous play
• 1st player to finish a level gets bonus points
• If one player is able to finish a level and the
  other cant, then the finished player wins
• If both players are unable to finish a level,
  then the player who finishes with the most points
  is the winner

7
Simon Blocks Screen Shot I

• Startup Screen

8
Simon Blocks Screen Shot II

• One Player Screen

9
System Specifications

• Windows XP
• DirectX 9.0 Installed
• DirectX 9.0 Compatible Video Card
• 256 Mb of Memory, 1.5 Ghz or higher
• 1024x768 pixel resolution

10
Game Design Considerations

• Steep System Specifications
• To insure the program will run
• I wanted to learn newest version of DirectX
  (currently DirectX SDK 9.0 December 2004)
• Game Design
• Player input (keyboard, mouse)
• Level Complexity

11
C and DirectX

• Managed code C and DirectX
• Built in memory manager
• Dont have to worry about memory leaks
• DirectX
• Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectPlay, DirectSound,
  Audio-Video Playback
• Microsoft provides an empty project framework for
  Visual Studio .NET 2003 with all of the basic
  DirectX initializations already provided
• Simple GUI creation

12
Planning
13
Conclusion

• Wanted to make a game for a long time
• Challenging to learn DirectX and C programming
• Goals
• Learn C and DirectX
• Make something fun to pickup and play
• Learn about Game Development