Selling My Soul For Marks

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Rim Highlighting In GLSL

At the start when I was trying to figure out rim highlighting I thought that it was going to be complex and difficult. It turns out that I was wrong. Rim  highlighting is not that bad at all and the GLSL code is not bad at all. For rim lighting you need to calculate the normal to the camera. once you have that you can smoothstep the start the end and the normal to camera. That may sound confusing at first but once you see the code it is simple. Lets get the vareables that we need first then the code will come into place. You need to pass these uniforms to the shader.

uniform vec3 camPosition;

uniform vec3 lightPosition1;

You also need these vareables.

float rimMultiplier = 1.0; float rimStart = 0.5; float rimEnd = 1.0; vec3 rimcolor = vec3(1.0,1.0,1.0);

To calculate the normal to the camera you can just do this line.

float normalToCamera = 1.0 - dot(normalize(vertex_normal), normalize(camPosition - vertex_position));

once you have that you can calculate the rim. 

float rim = smoothstep(rimStart, rimEnd, normalToCamera) * rimMultiplier;

There you are done when it comes to rim lighting. Here is what the model looks like with just rim lighting.

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Displacement Mapping in a Vertex Shader

Displacement mapping is a neat idea. why not make a black and white image into a height map and then you can create complicated geometry with a bunch of vertices's. Displacement mapping takes in a height map and changes the vertex position based on the map. This is an example of a height map.

the white spots will be displaced the most while black will not get displaced as much. If you have ever used Photoshop and familiar to a layer mask it does the same action. White reveals black conceals for layer maskes and it is the same for displacement maps. Now how is this done? Well this can be achieved in a vertex shader. Take in the height map as a texture and sample it from the texture coordinate. Then you can add the weights to the value of the map. Finally you can set the new vertex position and update it in space. This  is what it looks like.

vec4 newVertexPos; vec4 dv; float df; dv = texture2D(displacementMap, texcoord); df = 0.0 * dv.x + 1.5 * dv.y + 0.0 * dv.z; newVertexPos = vec4(gl_Normal * df * 5, 1.0) + gl_Vertex; gl_Position = gl_ModelViewProjectionMatrix * newVertexPos;

Finally you can bind the shader and see what that does. Here are some before and after screen shots. (not sure why Fraps took the screen shot with a blur tint but it is not like that when rendering)

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Edge Detection Using Sobel Algorithem

When you look at cartoons they have a distinct art style to them. One of the main points of the art style is the black lines around objects. In reality there are no black lines outlining everything but for this style it is used. This begs the question how do you detect if a fragment is an edge or not. Well have no fear math is here. To start us off we have to acknowledge that this is a post processing effect and it comes after you have shaded your scene. For my example i am doing cell shading for my lighting and making sure that i am rendering the color output and the normal output for the scene as this will be needed in the effect. Along with the normal map for the scene you will need to get the depth map of the rendered scene. This is done with Frame Buffer Objects and should be handled accordingly. Once your first lighting shader outputs the scene color, normals and depth textures you can start working on Sobel edge detection.

In your fragment shader you are going to want to make two functions that will do the Sobel algorithm. the algorithm is based on the current fragment and sampling all other pixels around it. You check in the vertical and horizontal to see if passes a certain threshold. If there is enough of a different between the fragments then it is an edge else it is not. That is the Edge detection in simple terms, but what does that look like? 

// return 0 if edge and 1 if no edge float Sobel_Horiz(sampler2D image, vec2 tc){ vec2 ps = pixelSize; vec2 offset[6] = vec2[](vec2(-ps.s, -ps.t), vec2(ps.s, -ps.t), vec2(-ps.s, 0.0 ), vec2(ps.s, 0.0 ), vec2(-ps.s, ps.t), vec2(ps.s, ps.t) ); vec3 sum = vec3(0.0); sum += -texture2D(image, offset[0] + tc).rgb; sum += texture2D(image, offset[1] + tc).rgb; sum += -2.0*texture2D(image, offset[2] + tc).rgb; sum += 2.0*texture2D(image, offset[3] + tc).rgb; sum += -texture2D(image, offset[4] + tc).rgb; sum += texture2D(image, offset[5] + tc).rgb; float lenSqu = dot(sum, sum); return (lenSqu < 1.0 ? 1.0 : 0.0); } float Sobel_Vert(sampler2D image, vec2 tc){ vec2 ps = pixelSize; vec2 offset[6] = vec2[]( vec2(-ps.s, -ps.t), vec2(0.0, -ps.t), vec2( ps.s, -ps.t), vec2(-ps.s, ps.t), vec2(0.0, ps.t), vec2( ps.s, ps.t) ); vec3 sum = vec3(0.0); sum += -texture2D(image, offset[0] + tc).rgb; sum += -2.0*texture2D(image, offset[1] + tc).rgb; sum += -texture2D(image, offset[2] + tc).rgb; sum += texture2D(image, offset[3] + tc).rgb; sum += 2.0*texture2D(image, offset[4] + tc).rgb; sum += texture2D(image, offset[5] + tc).rgb; float lenSqu = dot(sum, sum); return (lenSqu < 1.0 ? 1.0 : 0.0); }

Once you have the functions you can apply them to the normal and depth textures. These textures are used because there are sharp defined edges between objects compared to the color texture. Here is what the output normals look like for a scene

and once you apply the horizontal and vertical Sobel Algorithm you end up with edges like the output below. (For some reason Fraps took the white background and colored it blue not sure but it is actually white)

 When you put all the steps together you get your final result.

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Per Fragment Lighting

Lets talk lighting!!! When you are starting to learn shaders you learn how to do per vertex lighting and that is cool. You have lit a scene with shaders, you are awesome. but once you are done with that you look and see that what you have lit doesn't look great. The next step is to learn per fragment or per pixel lighting. They are the same thing just different ways of saying it. When you think of lighting there are two main calculations, diffuse and specular. Since once you have written lighting, you just have to use that over and over again I recommend writing a function. Lets get started.

Diffuse coefficient is defined as the dot product of the normal and  the vector from the vertex position to the light position. I wrote a funtion that takes in the vertex position the light position and the normal and returns the diffuse coefficient. 

float calcDiffuseCoEfficent(vec3 vert_position, vec3 light_position, vec3 normal){       vec3 l = normalize(light_position - vert_position);       return max(0.0, dot(normal, l)); }

Now time for the specular coefficient. This is defined as the dot product of the half vector and the normal to the power of the shininess. the half vector is the vector between the light vector and the the reflected ray. I also made a funtion that takes in the vertex position, light position, normal and shininess and returns the specular coefficient. This is what the funtion looks like. 

float calcSpecularCoEfficent(vec3 vert_position, vec3 light_position, vec3 normal, float shininess){       vec3 l = normalize(light_position - vert_position);       vec3 v = normalize(-vert_position);       vec3 h = normalize(l + v);       return pow(max(0.0, dot(h, normal)), shininess); }

Now that you have the two funtions you can use them to find the lighting coefficients. you can call them like this.

loat diffCoEfficent = calcDiffuseCoEfficent(vec3(vertex_position),lightPosition,vertex_normal);  float specCoEfficent = calcSpecularCoEfficent(vec3(vertex_position),lightPosition,vertex_normal,shininess);

Finally to use the calculated coefficients you can output them as such where c is the vec3 texture color.

gl_FragColor.rgb = c * (diffCoEfficent + specCoEfficent);

You are done now lets see what that did to a model. The first image is a model with no lighting on it at all. The second image is the model with per fragment lighting applied to it.

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Object Space Normal Mapping

Normal Mapping is one of the most satisfying thing i have done with shaders. Essentially normal mapping is a way of making a low polygon mesh look like a high poly model. Normal mapping lets each fragment have its own normal to do lighting  calculations. Fragments were mentioned so guess what it is done in a fragment shader. Now lets get started normal mapping. First we need a model to work with. Here is a model without normal mapping.

As you can see it is a model of a head but there is not a lot of detail on it. To make it look like a real person with defined features and texture to it you can use a normal map. You can make this low resolution model look like a higher one with a normal map. Once you apply one the model can look like this. 

 Once you apply the normal map you can see that he has skin texture, hair and a beard. You can add other details to the model by creating a normal map. There is another name for normal mapping that you might be familiar with, Bump Mapping. Normal mapping and bump mapping are the same thing. you can see the "skin" bumpiness on the model.

Now how do you make a normal map? You can go to any program like MudBox. You can take in a low poly model and add geometry. Once you have a high poly model you can start deforming and adding texture to the model. When you are satifyed with your model you can render a normal map and boom you are done. As the title of this blog states the type of map that i am using right now is a object space normal map. There is also tangent space normal maps but that requires you to convert to tangent space. do i rendered a object space normal map. This is what the map looks like.

 This texture stores the models normal values. How do you take a texture and get the normal values. It is quite simple actually. The normal values are the textures rgb vales. A normal's xyz values are the textures rgb values. So if you sample the texture at uv coordinates then you have the normal for that fragment. In your fragment shader you can get the normal in GLSL by using this line of code.

vec3 normal = normalize(texture2D(inputNormal, gl_TexCoord[0].st).rgb * 2.0 - 1.0);

First off you are using texture2D to sample the input normal map at the texure coordinate. But what is the point of taking that value from texture2D and doing * 2.0 - 1.0. Texture's are values between 0 and 1 and normals are in the range of -1 to 1. By doing this you are converting texture range to normal range. Since this is a normal everything is also getting normalized. 

That line is how you do object space normal mapping, but you are not done yet. to make sure that it is transformed propely in space you should multiply by the normal matrix.

normal = mat3(gl_NormalMatrix) * normal;

There you have it you have sucessfuly done object space normal mapping. Have fun with this.

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Shaders In Games: Toon Shading

For this week’s blog I get the topic from the tutorial. In our tutorial we learned basic Toon or Cell shading. This was a two pass toon shader that first took the shading and made it blocky and the other pass took the edges of objects and added a black outline to them. This method of toon shading takes a sample texture to compute the blocky shading.  if you have ever used a color picker before you will know the 2D texture with the black and white on each axis and they blend into each other. You take that ramp and make it choppy creating bars instead of a ramp like this image below

Once you have that done then you can start of the shader. You will need two shaders for this. One shader will create the toon like shading and the other will create a black line around all of the objects. In the toon vertex shader you are just passing the texture and normals to the fragment shader. You are also making a pass though vertex shader for the vertices.  Here is what the vertex shader looks like.

Once we are done with the vertex shader we move on to the fragment shader. The diffuse color is calculated and our blocky ramp is applied as a different lighting co-effiecent. The normals are also getting setup for the next shader. Because normal are from -1 to 1 and a texture is from 0-1 you have to convert the normals to fit a 0-1 range. This is done in the second texture output. This is what the toon fragment shader looks like.

    Now that we have toon shading we can start the final shader edge detection. To detect edges you use a algorithm called the Sobel algorithm.  The algorithm takes the current pixel and compares it to other pixels around it. The algorithm compares the pixels to an offset and if it is great enough then there is an edge. This is done in the horizontal and vertical directions. Now that you have the algorithm we can use it. Remember that normal map that was made in the previous shader we are going to use that normal map to see if there are edges. We are using the normal map and the depth map to see if there are any edges. Take all of these values and multiply them together to get the final edge and output that. Here is what the fragment shader looks like

       And here is the final result of the shaders

.

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Shaders In Games: Relative Luminance

So thinking about something to blog about and nothing came to mind right away. Then I though back to the tutorial on Tuesday and there was something interesting. Our TA was talking about how there is luminance and then there is relative luminance. Our eye sees in relative luminance. But what is luminance? The definition of luminance is a photometric measurement of luminous intensity per unit area of light. To put it another way it is the amount of light that is passed through or emitted from an area. We use luminance to determine how bright a surface will be. When someone uses luminance in video or graphics terms they are using it to determine the brightness of the surface. So what is the difference between luminance and relative luminance? Relative luminance is the way that our eye sees things. Green has the most luminance of any color and blue has the least. So what does relative luminance look like? How can you tell the difference? Well let’s take a look at this scene below

You see a red cube, a green cube, a blue sphere, and a while sphere. Make sure that you look at the colors because they will make a difference when we use relative luminance to make the picture black and white. When we use relative luminance to make the picture black and white then you get something like this.

This is the relative luminance of the scene. You can see that the green cube is a lot brighter than the red cube. And the blue sphere is the darkest of them all. If you look at this picture you can tell what color the objects are. Your eye just knows what they are supposed to be. This is how our eye perceives color. Now that you know see if you can notice it, you may be able to.

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Shaders In Games: Bloom

For this week’s blog I wanted to go over something that was taught in the tutorial this week. Hopefully if I try to explain it here will help me learn how this process is done. The process I am talking about is adding Bloom in post rendering. So the process to do this can be done in four steps. Each step is done with a FBO (Frame Buffer Object) and a shader program that is applied to it. The steps are: a scene pass, a blur of the scene, then a bright pass to emphasise the bright area, then you composite the layers. It has been stated that ant effect that you can do in Photoshop can be a shader and become the end result for your game. Let’s bloom a picture in Photoshop first.

  I have taken a picture and put it into Photoshop. First we will do the scene pass and blur. For the scene pass that is an easy one it is just duplicating the layer. Then we go to Filter->blur->box blur. We are going to use a box blur because it is easy to do and we will get a good result.

  Now for the bright pass. This can be done with levels or curves take your pick. Using levels is straight forward, take the slider and crush the blacks so that you are left with just the bright area showing. Any bright areas will affected and the dark ones will not.

  And for the final step we are going to take the layer that we have been working on and blend it into the original. In Photoshop we can do this with layer blending. We are going to use the blending mode screen. This will add all of the bright area and forget the dark ones making the bright brighter.

  Once you have done all the steps above you can see the final product. The first picture is the original and the second one is the bloomed one.

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Shading in Games: Borderlands 2 the look and feel

For this week’s blog I wanted to look at one of my favorite games. The game in question is Borderlands 2. When you think of borderlands art style can you think of a game that has a similar style. No other game has that same look and feel that borderlands portray. That is one of the reasons that I like the series so much.  The look and feel is unique and different making it a new experience. Now if I can make my game have a different look and feel from all the other games then we are going somewhere. So how does borderlands have that feel? Let’s take a better look.

    The picture above shows an example of style of borderlands. At first glance you would think that the game looks a little cartoony with everything outlined in black. You can see that the textures look toon like but still convey a lot of detail. With a mix of cell shading and an art style that complements that it gives borderlands that look and feel.

    Here is a link to see how to do a simple one pass cell/toon shading.

http://blogs.aerys.in/jeanmarc-leroux/2012/01/23/single-pass-cel-shading/

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Shading a game: Starting off with Hitman Absolution

For this week’s blog I have looked at a game that I am currently playing and looked at some of the shaders. 

In the picture above we can see the sun in the left hand side of the screen.  The sun draws the player’s eye and creates the focal point of the screen.  This is the first level of the game and the picture is taken at one of the first parts of the level. The sun is the first that stands out to you when you start to play the game.  It is moments like this that you remember when playing games.

To make the effect of the sun it seems like they took a ball and added a light source to it. Then they bumped up the light that was being emitted. Then they added at bloom effect to really sell the effect. You can see that the sun starts to layer on top of the tree right beside it. Also with the light there is a subtle little touch that you probably did not see but there is a nice lens flare that is subtle yet effective.

  The last effect is shown with the two pictures above. The sun rays from the trees are visible when the camera is in the right place. This effect is called god rays. To do the effect you take a polygon the size of the hole and make it follow the path of the light. Then you take the polygon and lover the opacity or alpha of it until you get the desired effect.

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I can shaders in Photoshop?

For this blog of the new semester I took a screenshot of my game from the previous semester and went into Photoshop added some effect to them. Apparently if you can make these filters in Photoshop into Shaders to make your game look like that. It goes without saying that I am interested in Shaders. I am an avid Photoshop user. I manly use Photoshop for photo enhancement.  With a variety of Photoshop tools I enhance photos. To fix up an image you can use a variety of filters, adjustment layers, masks, brushes and other assorted tools. If I can take some of that knowhow and use that to make my in game graphics look better, then Shaders have caught my attention. I am eager to learn how to implement Shaders into my game and learn how powerful they really are. So here is a screenshot of my game with some filters and effects applied to it. Hopefully I will so be able to replicate this with Shaders.

This screenshot I used the filter called “Glowing Edges”.  It takes the image and highlights the edges of the object of the scene. I then took that image and took out all of the saturation leaving it as black and white. Next I took the image and inversed the black and white to make ending layer blending option work. I took the image and added a curves adjustment to take the image and darken the black lines and make them stand out from the white background. After that was all done I boosted the contrast. This left me with the image below.

  I took this image and changed the blending mode from normal to multiply. this make the dark lines of the image pop out and the white background does not affect the image. When all of the above are done the end result is shown below.

The next effect takes the image and makes it look like a poster edge. The filter that was applied is called just that “Poster edge”. This takes the image and exaggerates the color changes making it look cartoony.

For the final effect I took the first effect and the second effect and added them together with some layer blending. After that I took the base image and duplicated it. I changed the duplicated layer blending to screen to give it a bloom like effect. And for the final step I took an adjustment layer and unsaturated the image just a bit to that the image was not too bright and saturated. This is the result.

I am not sure the power or limitations of Shaders, but if they can replicate something that I can do in Photoshop then I am looking forward to learning Shaders and GLSL.  

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What’s in Season? - Ontario edition

This week is the final game that I have to make. Finally I am done after this game looking forward to that. This week’s game is a learning game that is support to teach the players about the fruits and vegetables and when they are in season. Not sure how this one was thought of and I probably don’t want to know. I remember that my professor for this Course saying that the first 10 games that I make are going to me complete crap so we are going to get though out of the way. Well of course my games are going to be crap if I have to makes games that have to be based on someone’s bad requirements. Bit I will save that for a different blog. So the process of making this game was simple. The game is a learning game so instantly you think of a matching game that pairs up the fruits and vegetables with the different seasons. With that you can learn what fruits and vegetables are in season. The rules for the game are simple so that anyone can read then and start playing. That is pretty much it there is not that much to this game. Well this is it for board games for this class. To that hip hip hurray. Well here are the rules for the game.

Game Rules:

All the players start by drawing 5 from the deck and putting them in their hands, players must not show the other players their hand. The youngest player starts and at the start of your turn you ask any other player for a season card, a fruits card, or a vegetable card. Any player that is asked for a card must give them one of that type of card or in the case that they do not have the card the player must tell them to draw. Next you may play one pair of cards, either a season card and fruit/vegetable card or two fruit/vegetable cards. Player are not allowed to look at full list of fruits and vegetables till the end of the game or to check when some calls a pair. A player must try to play season cards that match when the fruit/vegetable on the card is in season, or two fruit/vegetable cards are in season at the same time. At the beginning of a players own turn he/she can “call someone out” by placing a season card or fruit card on a players pair if they think the pair is incorrect, the players can check the list to see who is right. In the case where the pair is right and the player who called is wrong the player who called must surrender the card they used to call out the other player and end their turn.  In the case where the pair is wrong and the player is right the player who called gets the pair on his side replacing with the right one and the other card goes to his hand and he continues his/her  turn. In the case where the pair is wrong and the player who called is wrong the pair goes back to the owners hand and the player who called gets his card returned to their hand and ends their turn.  In the case where the pair is right and the player who called is right the tie goes to the defender and the player who called must surrender the card they used to call to the other player and end their turn. The game is done when there are no more cards in the deck and players are allowed to see the full list of fruits and vegetables. The player with the highest number of right pairs wins the game.

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Dance Pants

Dance Pants, is a party game with one goal in mind. To be the best Bollywood dancer there is… well at least among your friends.

For the third and final prototype for game design and production one, we had to make a party game. in the usual twist that the prototypes have the game had to take inspiration of Bollywood. This one had to take the essence of dancing and Bollywood to make a party game that can be played with multiple people. When we heard that it was a dance game we instantly though of the game just dance. Among us we have played our fair share of just dance. And have come to know the game as a great way to get on your feet and dance in a game. Then you have to make sure that it had to incorporate Bollywood.  

We also though of seen it DVD so we thought of using the format of the game to make the game. we play clips of Bollywood and players have to do the dance that is shown on the screen. There is a judge that decides who did the best job. That was the essence of our game.

The Judge of the game is like the judge from apple to apples or cards against humanity. They are chosen and have to make the decision on who wins the round. This gives people that are not good at dancing to get a chance to set out of their comfort level and try to dance. You get the feeling of winning from just dance and the format of seen it. that is coupled with the judging aspect of Apples to Apples and Cards Against humanity.

Game rules:

Dance Pants is a fun party game with only one goal. To be the best Bollywood dancer out there, or at least amongst your friends.

 Dance Pants players are pitted against each other in a multitude of dancing goals to achieve the most points by the end. The end of the game is not predetermined but rather entirely up to the players. The players may choose to play to an agreed upon point limit or time limit or round limit. Alternatively, they may simply choose to play until they get bored, or everyone is exhausted from dancing. Ultimately the goal is for the players to have fun and have a little friendly competition between friends!

 To setup the game, the players must simply place the DVD into a DVD player and shuffle the deck of cards.

 One player is selected randomly at the start of each round and is dubbed the "judge". He or she is in charge of choosing the winner for that particular round. The judge draws a card from the deck and announces the card aloud to the other players.

 Located on the cards are the number of participants and the corresponding clip that the judge must select from the DvD. The clip contains a particular dance and song number from a bollywood film.

 After watching the clip, the players dance!

 Following the dance, the judge must then select the team with that they believed performed better, and said team is then awarded 1 point per player.

 A new judge is selected and the round starts again.

 At the end, players tally up thier points and the person with the most points is declared the winner! (Ties may be sorted with a dance-off)

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Character Builder Time

This week we had to make a charater for game design. You have to make a charater and then they will be interviewed. answer as your charater so here it is:

What is your name? Gender? Race? Religion? Age?

My name is Max Dunn, I am a 16 year old student. I am a 5 foot 6 inches American male. You also asked me what religion I belong to, and that would be none. I don’t believe in organized religion.  I was born in the city and have lived there for all my life.

Where were you born? What about your parents—where are they, and are they alive? When you were growing up, did you struggle, and if so, in what way? What is your economic situation? How would someone stereotype you at a glance?

I come from an average family of middle class and growing up my life was not too difficult financially. That is not to say that my life has not been hard.  For most of my school days I have been one of the smallest guys in my year. I am not the strongest guy and that makes me the target of bullies. I have the nickname week knees and all of the guys beat up on me. I end up getting in fights that I don’t want to be a part of. I am getting tired of being a human punching bag. All I want is to become stronger.

What year is it now?

The year is 2000, the turn of the century. For someone to stereotype me right now they would say that I am I shy and quite guy. They may say I have e meek nature.

Do you have a romantic partner? If so, whom? Who is your best friend and what is he/she/it like? How would your friend describe you?

No I do not have a romantic partner. I am not that great at talking to girls or other people in general. I admire my best friend from school Maya. She is a strong individual and will stand up for what she feels is right. She has a strong sense of justice. Maya is well versed in martial arts and has the ability and the strength to stand up for her and others. She is my inspiration to learn martial arts and get stronger. Strong enough to protect myself and others I care about. For her description of me you would have to ask her I cannot speak for her.

Would you steal? How do you feel about lying? Can you be trusted by your friends? Do you have any other vices?

No I would not steal and not prone to lying. For lying you can’t say that you would not lie because then you would be lying. I hope I am a trusting person that my friends can trust. If not then I am not the person that I want to be.

What makes you happy? What makes you sad?

I am happy when I am able to be around friends and not have to deal with people who want to start fights. I am getting tired of them all. There are not a lot of things that make me sad per say I do get angry though.  I get angry when others force a fight. When I get stronger I will not mind it as much because I can deal with them.

What is the one secret that no one must know about you?

If there was something that I did not want anyone to know about me then why would I say that now? If you think about it anyone who has a brain will not give you an answer and the reason is in the question.

Are you afraid to die?

Yes I am afraid of dying. I think anyone has some fear of death in one way or another. I am also interested in death. The questions like what is death and what comes after are the questions that everyone asks with no answer. I know that I will not find the answer to these questions but it is still the questions that everyone asks.

Do you have any phobias?

I have a fear of spiders, snakes and people that are armed. These are all common fears that most people have. I am hoping that with the right training I will overcome the last one.

Are you quick tempered or patient?

I am a patient person understanding of others and willing to work with that. Patients is a virtue that I am glad have because of the constant bullies and thugs. Even though I am a patient person I am tired of them and it is time to stand up for myself.

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Modify Games Time

For this week's task we have to modify the game so that it is all skill or all chance. For the game that I decided to modify Liars Dice. To change up Liars Dice, instead of rolling this dice and looking at your dice you are not allowed to look at it. Also if you call something you have to exactly right. There is no minimum that you have to reach. You have to be spot on or you lose. To make sure that this is not so hard to get a right answer instead of playing with 5 D6s you play with 5 D4s. This takes out two numbers so you only have to guess between one to four. So overall this game is all bout chance. You cannot look at your dice or anyone else. Now you have no idea what any dice are. You are flying on the dark. You have to make your guess off the basis of diddly squat. This makes the game all on chance. The other mechanics are there to make sure that the game was not incredibly hard to play.

Next I had to modify the game Tic Tak Toe. This one was hard, since it is a simple and easy game that is well known and set in stone. So to modify this game players first decide if they are X or the O. From there players take a standard deck of 52 playing cards and shuffle their cards. Each player takes the first card from their deck and play it. The player with the higher number wins. This goes to a best of seven where. From there the player rolls a six sided dice and calls even or odd. If they are right then they can play their letter on the board (X/O). If they get it wrong they have to play the other players letter. The first person to get 3 of their letters in a row is the winner. The board is also no the standard 3x3 board. Instead the board is 5x5 this makes the game more interesting.

Liars Dice Rules:

Players each get a cup and 5 D4s to start. To begin shake the dice up in the cup and place it opening down on the table. Players are not allowed to look under their cups until someone calls out another player. Someone is selected to go first and play continues clockwise. Then the player starts off by calling whatever they think what is under everyone’s cups. For example there are 2 fours. The statement has to be exactly right or the statement is false. If another player thinks that the statement is false then they can call out the player. When this happens all players reveal what is under their cups. The player that is right about the statement wins and get to keep their dice. The loser of this exchange loses a dice and a new round starts. If all players feel that the statement is true or are not going to call the next player has to make a statement that is one or more higher than the perverse statement. Example if the first statement is “there are 2 threes” then the next player has to say 3 or more of some number. The game is over when there is only one player with dice left.

Tic Tac Toe:

To start off the game players get a standard deck of 52 playing cards. The board is a 5x5 grid. Players decide if they are X or O. to begin the game players shuffled their cards. One their decks are shuffled each player takes the top cards from their deck and plays it face up. The player with the highest card wins that round. Players have to win in a best of 7. the player that wins the best of 7 goes on to the dice round. Before the dice is rolled the player calls even or odd. Of the player is right then he gets to play their letter on the board. If they get it wrong they have to play the other letter on the board. The player that gets 3 in a row wins the game.

[cruize-missile-blog]

Nocturnal Journey

For this month’s prototype game we had to take inspiration from the painting of “Starry Night” by Van Gogh. From the painting we had to make a game that is based off of the theme of nocturnal atmosphere. This game also had to be an art game as was discussed in class. It did not have to be fun but it needed the player to make interesting and meaningful choices.

For our game we took the idea of night and the idea of being lost in the dark. From there we thought of how we can make a game mechanic that would help with the theme of lost in the darkness. For the player to be lost in the darkness, we thought of a goal that the player would have to work towards. This goal would not be known to the player until the day or the end of the game. From that the game was born.

Though out my experience playing game there are some games that have had “starry night” moments to them. Some examples of game would be BioShock and Mark of the Ninja.

 When you play Bioshock you get this moment of awe when you first see rapture and get this scene of exploration. You are experiencing this moment and you get this feeling. You can put it into words but I get it when I look at starry night. Also the painting reminds me of the atmosphere of BioShock.

Mark of the Ninja is a stealth, action game that portrays another type of nocturnal atmosphere. The games look and feel really takes you in. The darkness plays a big role in the game. You are safe in the shadows, concealed by the darkness. If you are in the light then you can be caught. I thought of this mechanic when I think of nocturnal atmosphere.

Nocturnal Journey Rules

Setting up the Game - The arrows are placed on the statues - On/off tokens are placed on lamps (one each)

- The red/green squares are placed on the street lights (one each)

- The clean/graffiti tokens are placed on the walls (one each)

- The open/closed tokens are placed on the doors (one each) Every player choses one player piece and places it on any blank square they chose.

Starting the Game - Hand out one card to each player making sure the hint side is facing upwards and that players do not look at the goal side of the card – the hints relate to the goal on the other side - Players are not allowed to look at any goal until the game ends

- Players decide amongst themselves who starts.

- Play continues clockwise.

Turns - At the start of the turn, players roll the dice and move the corresponding number of spaces in any direction

- Players are not permitted to move over a square they have already been on during the same turn

- If player lands on an object, they may choose to interact with the object (flipping a lamp from on to off, turning a statue east etc.)

- If a player lands on another player, they can chose to swap goals with that player (without looking at the goals) - Play continues for 20 turns (one turn = every time a player takes a turn)

- Once the game is over, players flip over their goal cards and see if they have met the requirements

- If any player has fulfilled every goal on their card that player wins the game – there can be multiple winners/ losers

World Objects

- Lamps – On/ Off

- Street Lights – Red/Green

- Walls – Graffiti/Clean

- Doors – Open/Closed

- Statues – North, South, East, West - New Goal Space – Player swaps their current goal for a new one in the deck – they are still not permitted to look at either goal

[cruize-missile-blog]

Frogger the card game

Atari 2600. when you hear this all I think about this when I was a kid. I grew up playing games like Galaga, Centipede and Frogger. So you can guess I excitement when I learned that this week's task is to make a card game out of an Atari golden age game. To start we had to pick a game. That was easier said than done. We decided on Frogger as it was one of the more popular Atari golden age games. With that we set up to figure out how to make a cad game from a race to the end game. There were many ideas at the beginning. Different decks, players playing as frogs and the obstacles, and different action cards that would change the gameplay in different ways. All these were okay ideas but we found that they were over complicating the game. We were also getting away from Frogger in one way or the other. We wanted to keep the game simple and easy to play. All theses ideas had cards that were going to have multiple effects and ways that they could be played. To simply the game we used a standard deck of playing cards. I though that it would be easy to play and all you would need is a standard deck of playing cards. With that settled we needed some way to make a standard deck of cards play like Frogger which is at its heart is a race to the end game. After much thought we decided on a field of cards like to make a field to race on. Players would pick a card from the start and the goal was to get to the end of the field without dieing. The goal is to start at one end and make it to the other end by correctly guessing if the next card has a higher or lower value that the card they currently have. With that the card game was turning into a Frogger game. With a standard deck of playing cards we created a race to the end game just like Frogger.

Game Rules:

Frogger: The Card Game can be played with a standard deck of 52 playing cards. To start the game players must first set up the field. The field is 5 cards long and the number of players plus 2 wide. For example, if there are 4 players then the field will be 6 cards wide. The goal is to start at one end and make it to the other end by correctly guessing if the next card has a higher or lower value that the card they currently have, with aces being the highest value. For example, players pick one card at the start and flip it over. They then pick a card in the next row that is connected to the card that they selected. You can chose cards that are diagonal. Once they have picked a card they have to say if that card is higher or lower than the card that they turned over. If you are incorrect you lose and must wait for the rest of the players to either lose or win. The players that make it to the end go to the next round. For the next round the field is 4 cards long by the number of players plus 2 wide. The players that make it to the end of this round win. Players can cut off other players by making it so that they are unable to pick a card. If this is the case then that player loses.