Defining the video game graphic (Scenario).

Designing  a game Scenario demand a lot of Drawing. For instance in Final Fantasy X was build a world name Spira,  this world has at least 27 different places, most of them inspired in Asian themes. Also for the resident evil series  was invented an industrialized mid-western American town name Raccon City, including Mansions, Police Station, Laboratories, Hospital, etc.  in the other side, all this designing must be codified in the  video game data source for rendering during  execution time.

Taking note of this two important issues, make you consider using Pre rendered 2D scenario instead of a Full 3D Game.

I decide to use 2D pre- rendered scenario based in the fact that the I’m not an architect, interior designer, and nothing related.

Making full 3D scenario implies sketching maps, defining point primitive, selecting Texture, and This is just the drawing stuff.

Also the programming difficulty of a full 3D game is higher, because of the camera movement, and more complex Collision detection.

Pre rendered 2D scenario was widely used in the Sony Play Station console during the 90^th decade. The pre-rendered scenario looks with more graphic effect than the Play Station graphic engine was able to achieve with the moving object.

This effect can be emulated with a common sense technique: Draw the image with the Pre-Rendered Scenario (all the fixed parts) as a wall paper in the background layer, and  in a front layer,  the moving objects are Draw, like characters, Items, etc.

The camera and the moving object should be set in way that looks like they are inside the Wallpaper image.

But there is a little more to do…

After a close study of this Games graphics, I notice that it´s necessary three more effect to accomplish a realistic Pre-Rendered  scenarios.

One of them is the masking effect. I mean drawing a third layer, in front of the moving object.  For instance a fixed Table in front of the camera cover the legs of a person that is behind the table.

The Second one is the X Y movement of the Scenario. This effect is necessary if the display windows hide part of the scenario. For instance the pre-rendered scenario is a panoramic view of a field. The display windows shows only a quarter of it, and when the player move around, the windows follow the player showing the other part of the Scenario. And the final effect  is display a number of pre-rendered image or frames successively, obtaining an animation instead of a static image.

This is necessary for display more realistic  object in the fixed scenario. Like a Ceiling fan. One image-pre rendered Scenario will show the fan as steady.

But displaying a sequence of image containing the fan in different position will  give the effect of movement.

In our next input let´s  consider different techniques to find really cool Pre-rendered Scenarios.

Game category, and story line.

Before designing the program structure, let´s define the kind of game we are making, and the Story line.
We mention before that it will be a Action Role playing game (ARPG). One the famous titles lying on this category is “The Legend of Zelda”.

Zelda 64

Other common and most named game category is Role playing game (RPG). Under this category “Final Fantasy” series is one of the most popular.

FF7

Resident Evil

The third game category that I will mention is Survival Horror, the series of “Resident evil” named and defined the survival horror genre.
In this three categories the player pass through a sequences of events to complete a story line and you play a protagonist “Role”.
The ARPG implies real action fighting from the player during combats, like running, Ducking, stabbing, shooting, etc.
The RPG instead, replace the action in battle with turn-based battlefield with the protagonists and antagonists on different sides. The player issues combat orders—like "Attack", "Flee", and "Item"—to individual characters via a menu-driven interface while engaging in battles.
The Survival Horror, is a ARPG inspired by horror fiction. These games make the player vulnerable by providing them with less ammunition and fewer heavy weapons than other action games. Keep this definition in mind the ARPG game scope.
The name of the game will be “Alafia´s Aegis” or Alafia´s Armor.
The game play tell the Story of a veteran Soldier Name Genma, who serve to the royal family of The Alafia´s Kingdom.
One day, a mysterious letter from the King Summons him to the Alafia’s Forest Palace.
When he arrive, the place is sized by a unknown force of Adroids.
While is fighting the Androids, Genma rescue other King´s Servants who reveal him that the King is held underneath the palace.
Once there, Genma will try to save the king against a tremendous Power: The legendary Aegis.

Programming a Action role-playing gam

Making your own game is a meaningful and realistic project to jump in. Think of it as painting a landscape, or writing a book, you don't do it for money, is something related to your personal satisfaction. A good game involve not just programming, but argument, Scripts, Quest, and a lot of drawing. Everyone could learn how to make a game, but just a few ones will have the inspiration of invent one.

But, could it be realistic for just one person to accomplish a project that involve so many things?

Ten years ago I decided to program a video game, and my results were good enough to impress a lot of friends, but three years later I quit. The reason: No discipline.

Five years later I resume the project, starting all over again in a more simple Programming language, this time I kept it in silence, and the result were even worst. As a consequence of this, I changed my idea of making a game, and start writing a book.

Finally at November 2010 I decided to share with a group of students all the information I had gathered while pursuing my goal.

The idea was not only to show the project in paper, I wanted to share the code of a functional game.

The result was “The Mole chaser” a Code in Visual C++ Express 2010 with OpenGL libraries, I drew a 3D Scenario looking like a golf field, inside it, the player uses a Hammer controlled by the computer mouse and chase a Randomly moving mole.

This is how my first video game was done in just two weeks.

Obviously that is not the type of game I was looking in the first place, but it taught me something; If I can achieve a simple game in just two weeks, then a more complex game can be achieved in a couple of weeks more. Quite Simple right?, The real important thing is to achieve, every two weeks a strategic and quick goal related to the Project.

Of course, without discipline, communication, and a little bit of pressure, the project will fall again in the uncertainty.

I will register in this blog my quick achievements, maybe my experience will be useful for your own project.