Game Project for CS4213 Sem 1, 2004/05
Heaven & Earth Inc
(Aug-Nov 04)
Team Members:
• Steven Halim
– Nov 2004
– Mid 2006
: 1st year Postgrad
: PhD candidate @ SoC, NUS
• Jefry Tedjokusumo
– Nov 2004
– Mid 2006
: 1st year Postgrad
: Research Assistant @ ECE, NUS
• Lucas Agussurja
– Nov 2004
– Mid 2006
: Final year Undergrad
: Research Engineer @ TLI-AP, NUS
• Fabianus Mulawadi
– Nov 2004
– Mid 2006
: Final year Undergrad
: Working outside NUS
Tale of Time: Summary
• First Person Shooter
• Engaging storyline in beautifully rendered levels
• Built using:
– Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2003
– True Vision 3D Game Engine
(http://www.truevision3d.com)
Character: Mark
• Our main hero
• His girlfriend, Ivy, died
• His quest: find
Talking Cock
to reverse time
Character: Minotaur
• The Big Boss
• Guards the
Talking Cock
• Hard to defeat
• Mark must find
power ups:
Tiger Balm
Character: One-Eyed Monster
• Guards the
Temple Maze
• Tiger Balm
is somewhere inside
Let’s see the game
Full demo in God Mode
Enjoy the story
“Technical” Overview
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Storyboard
Level Design
Character Design
Sound / Music
Game Engine
Game AI
Aesthetic: Particle System
Storytelling via Cut Scenes
• Good Game  Good Story
– Scripts +
– Background pictures +
– Voice recording
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LOAD NEXT SCENE
cutscenes\\03_talking_cock.bmp
After hesitating for a while, Mark
decided to use the Talking Cock.
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He bowed to the Talking Cock and
changed into a Minotaur.
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LOAD NEXT SCENE
cutscenes\\12_guardian.bmp
Time was reversed and Ivy was alive
and well again. Of course, she did
not remember anything about Mark...
Level Design (Island / Outdoor)
• Height Maps + Sky Box + Billboards
Level Design (Temple / Indoor)
• Script + Texture Mapping + Mini Puzzle
Character Design: 3D Models
Source:
• TV3D Engine SDK
• Free 3D models (e.g. Half Life SDK)
• Credits to the respective authors
Sound / Music
• Shot
• Monster Roar
• Opening MIDI
– Chrono Trigger (Super Nintendo 1995)
• Credits to the respective authors
Game Engine: Collision Detection
• We are not allowed to use Game Engine’s
default Collision Detection
Collision Detection (CD)
• We implemented:
– 2-levels Bounding Sphere
– Line-Sphere CD
– Static Collision
checks against:
• Trees
• Walls
• Monsters
Minotaur’s AI
We implemented:
• Way markers
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1
Talking Cock
3
5
4
Minotaur’s AI
We implemented:
• Simple Finite State Machine
Nothing happens
Idle
Patrol
Lost sight of Mark…
“See” Mark?
Attack
Aesthetic: Particle System
• A simple but effective technique to create:
– “Energy Shield”
– “Invisible Barriers”
– “Glowing Objects”
Let’s see the game (again)
Technical demo (with Debug mode ON)
Behind the Scenes
• Why there exists fog inside the temple?
• Why the temple vanishes after you exit from it?
– It was game engine (3rd party) bugs that we hide…
– But hey…you didn’t notice this, right? 
• Maybe the games that you play now looks like
what you see because:
– The developer hide something behind it…
– Or because they don’t have time to implement
more than what you see…
The Impact of this Game Project for us
• None of us works in game industry now, but…
– We can now appreciate or even criticize how the
games out there are created
– We still enjoy playing games 
Q&A
• Thank you for your attention!
• Time for Q&A
Tale of Time can be downloaded for free at:
http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~stevenha/tale_of_time.html