Perihelion Jeff Ridenour Jeremiah Jilk Lorenzo Gil-Sanchez Pablo Diaz-Gutierrez Sherry Wang.

Perihelion

Jeff RidenourJeremiah Jilk

Lorenzo Gil-SanchezPablo Diaz-Gutierrez

Sherry Wang

Perihelion is...

...a game with the originality of those we played in the early 80's,

like...

M.U.L.E.

Perihelion is...

...a simulation game, like...

Sim City

In Perihelion you have to...

...conquer a new world in which to build your empire, just like in...

Civilization

And most important

Perihelion is a massive multiplayer game, as we

saw in...

Ultima Online

The story• 3028 AD

• Galaxy of Chonchi

• Arrested w/o underwear

• Confined space prison

• Objectives:– 1.- Survive– 2.- Escape

• Everything before...

Network Capabilities:

• One Asteroid System

• Hundreds of Asteroids

• Thousands of Players: Moving from Asteroid to Asteroid

• All Playing At the Same Time

• How is this Accomplished?

Network Architecture

Main Server

Asteroid Servers

Clients

Gameplay and the Gameworld:

• The Asteroid map will consist of 100 x 100 tiles. The map will wrap around on all sides, thus creating the effect of a continuous spherical surface. Terrain will include rock, mud, mountains, water, and ice. Display will be centered on the players position in a 2D, top down display. Players will interact with other players as well as buildings, tools, and resources.

Resources: Commodities which players can gather, produce, and process which will fulfill players’ needs and generate money. Types of

resources include:

• Consumables which players need (e.g. Food, Water, Energy)

• Raw materials which players can sell or use to make other goods (e.g. Oil, Iron)

• Manufactured products which players can sell for a profit. (e.g. Chemicals, License Plates)

Buildings:

• Large, immobile stationary factories and machines, which players can own and use to gather, process, store, and trade resources (examples: Iron Mine, House, Shop, Chemical Factory)

Tools:

• Objects which the player may carry in inventory which give the player different abilities (usually finding and gathering resources) (examples: Shovel, Pick, Metal Detector, Stock Ticker, Radar)

Economics and the Shop:

• Goal of the game is to make enough money to escape from the asteroid

• Resource tree has multiple paths to fulfill needs and make profits, allowing players to create and exploit niche markets

• Every asteroid will have a shop which will buy/sell resources and tools, as well as sell ticket off the asteroid

• Prices of resources determined by a real time supply/demand model

• Consumable prices based solely on local supply/demand, exportable manufactured products based on external effects

Trading with Other Players:

• Barter between players a crucial part of the game; primary means of interaction between players

• Players can set their own values for goods, independent of store prices

• Accessing an adjacent player activates a pop up trading window

• Windows consist of three panels (inventory, player, other player’s offer) trades are confirmed with a checkbox by both players.

Controls: The interface is designed for the keyboard, using minimal keys to make it both

playable and intuitive

• Movement (Arrow Keys) Players move in continuous fashion with arrow keys

• Action Button: (Space Bar) Use Currently Selected Tool Access Button: (Tab) Access adjacent building or player

• Inventory: Player can hold limited number of objects. Page Up/Down cycles through inventory

• Drop Selected Item: (Del) Items may be left on the ground

• Menu: (Esc) Options for Music, Sound, Quitting Game etc

• Global Chat: (Enter Key) Allows broadcast chat between all players.

Intended Audience & Platforms•Perihelion is targeted toward Boys, Ages 16 - 25.

•Perihelion should also appeal or Girls, Ages 16 -25.

•Perihelion is Designed for Windows, but...

•It will be Portable to All Major Operating Systems

Technical issues• The programming language used will be C++ We Will used the library SDL for two

main reasons:

– The game is 2D and SDL is easier to use than DirectX in Windows and Xlib or SVGAlib in Linux.

– If we only use SDL features and standard C++ constructions we can get a lot of portability.

• SDL provides routines for:

– Graphics

– Input devices (keyboard, mouse and joystick)

– Timers

– Threads

– Sound

• SDL works on Windows, Linux, BeOS, MacOS and MacOS X

Technical issues• The project is hosted in Sourceforge

(http://perihelion.sourceforge.net). Some of the advantages of using Sourceforge are the following:

– Space for a website

– CVS server

– Mailing lists ([email protected])

– Compilation farms

– Everything is free! • The only requisite for use sourceforge is giving your project a free

license. We choose the GPL one.