PROJECT INFORMATION

Project Documents

Feasibility Study
Our feasibility study for the Legacy Foundation Project, as required by our professor.

Project Components

The Legacy Foundation Project ("Foundation framework") consists of four major parts. The team will be divided into groups that will focus on each of these parts, with some overlap where appropriate and where needed. The four parts are:

Game Engine
The game engine we're developing takes an "eye of the storm" approach. It handles the game loop, user event redirection, object creation, and object storage. The objects themselves then define how the game plays. Defining these objects is the purpose of the Demo Environment section of the Project. Programming will be done using Python and an extension language for Python, called Pyrex. Primary developers are Joel and Piers (see below).

Media Engine
The media engine takes graphics requests (sprite drawing, model animation, etc.) and audio requests (sound and music playback) from the game engine, and presents them to the player on the screen and through the speakers. We are settling for a "2.5D" graphics system, meaning that only some of the objects onscreen will be full 3D objects, which simplifies the task somewhat. Graphics will be provided through OpenGL, audio through OpenAL. A video component may also be included; more on that if and when a solid option is found. Primary developers are Darren, John, and Nik.

Demonstration Environment
The Demonstration Environment is the label given to the collection of game objects and resources that define the actual "game" that the player sees on the screen, in particular for the game demo we will be producing to test the Foundation framework. The Demo Environment includes all data modules (written in Python), in-game graphics (made in Blender, The Gimp, and Photoshop), in-game music (made in Melody Assistant), in-game sound effects, and scenarios with their associated maps and scripts. It is probable that everyone will be involved in creating the Demo Environment at various points throughout the project, although Piers, Joel, and Nik will be primarily responsible for it.

Project Team Members

Joel Arbuckle contact
Joel is the overall project manager, and will be focusing most of his programming and planning efforts on the game logic system and the graphical interfaces (design, implementation, and graphics). Joel will also manage the interfacing of the components of the Foundation framework.

Darren Basler contact
Darren is the leader of the Media Engine portion of the project. He will be responsible for overall planning of the implementation of the graphical portions of the Media Engine, and the actual implementation itself, as well.

Piers Excell-Rehm contact
Piers' primary responsibility will be the data flow within the game environment. He is also one of the two main designers of the semi-game that will be used as a demo of the Foundation framework (the other being Joel).

Nik Molnar contact
Nik is responsible for the special effects system within the Media Engine, specifically graphical particle effects such as rain, splashing water, waves, etc. He may also work on specific portions of game logic, such as the character conversation management system.

John Moore contact
John is responsible for the audio portion of the Media Engine, as well as being the second graphics functionality programmer. John has also expressed interest in producing some of the needed sound effects for the demo.

TOOLS & LINKS

Our team decided early on that we would try to use free or relatively cheap software, and that we would avoid at all costs any tool that required us to pay royalties. For this reason, we have thoroughly scoured the open source development community for the tools that we need to make a great game framework, and later, a great game. Here are the programs, programming languages, and libraries that we have either decided to use or are fairly certain we will use:


Mac Tools

PROJECT UPDATES

Site last updated on February 21, 2006 @ 8:08pm




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