Python work and post uni work

Since finishing the games degree I have gone back to the games I was working on during summer and have also started to learn python. The following game I made in a couple of days after working through a few python tutorials. I used pygame and livewires modules for the graphics and input. It is not completely finished as I made it to learn how to program in python.


















Game & Code: Earth Defender



I am also restarting one of my year out projects which is an RTS game and I adding python into the game.














At the moment the game generates a terrain randomly, a "worker" character is assigned to the player. Can use the mouse to move about the terrain by moving the cursor to the edges of the screen. W,A,S,D rotate the camera and the mouse wheel zooms in and out. If you left click on the worker it selects him or can click and drag to create a selection box to select him. Once selected can right click on the terrain to move him or if you press 1,2,3 you can create a building and right click to place it. Will only place if it is highlighted green. left click to cancel.
Alt + F1 exits the program.

Game and Code: RTS

Final Year

One of my projects for my final year was the Games Case Project. The Games Case Project was one of our degrees group projects. As a group we had to design a game from a game proposal, create the code design and then develop a game demo from our design documents.

Our group project was a rpg set in a cave.

I worked as part of the group to design the game and to do all the code design. Myself and one other member of the group created the initial game systems. I then worked on the inventory systems, items, menus and menu system, sound, quests and quest system, shopkeeper, level up sysrtem and heads up display. I also worked as part of a team to develop other parts of the game such as the picking. We used SVN for version control and also so that we could monitor the progress of the development.













The game is controlled by the mouse. Left click on the floor to move your avatar, left click on enemies, shopkeeper and objects to interact with them.
If you interact with the shopkeeper the shopkeeper menu will show. You can trade with the shopkeeper in the shop menu. You can also view your current quests, completed and new quests in the quest menu. Once a quest has been completed you have to go to the quest in the current quest section and complete it. You can accept new quests from the new quest section.
There is a game menu icon in the top right of the screen (occasionally difficult to see). This brings up the game menu. Here you can see your current quests, statistics, quit the game etc. You can also see your current inventory, change your equipped items, take healing herbs. If you right click on an item in your inventory it will show more details.

There are a couple of visual bugs in the game such as when running the game in release some of the heads up display doesn't show but in debug it does show.

The exe files are in the following bin folder. The release and debug have been provided. Running the game in release runs the game in fullscreen. Some of the 2D textures occasionally do not render when running in release. They do render when running in debug which runs windowed.

Game: rpg game (Vorld of Vampires)
Code: Sample Code

The project is too large to upload so only the code I worked on is provided.



Dissertation

For my dissertation on I choose AI as my topic. My project involved taking different pathfinding algorithms and creating competitive AI's. The AI's created where then put into a 'Pacman' style game where they had to collect collectable objects to see which was the best performing AI. The path finding algorithms chosen were Tremaux's algorithm, which is a maze solving algorithm and Ant Algorithm, which is an algorithm which uses a behaviour based on real ant behaviours.

Dissertation: Dissertation
Program: Dissertation Program
Program Code: Program Code

Year out (3rd year)

During my year out I worked on some of my own projects to further my game development skills.

The first project I worked on was learning how to develop games with DirectX. I ported my Gamecube project to the PC to help me learn DirectX.
















Game: Sokoban DX9 Game
Source Code: Sokoban DX9 Source


During my year out I worked full time and during my spare time I worked through a few textbooks to further my game development knowledge and because I also enjoy creating games.
Unfortunately the progress I made was lost when my computer died before I came back to uni for my 4th year.

Gamecube Project

In the second semester of second year I worked on the Gamecube development kits.

I made two small games which were 3D ship flying over a landscape and a Sokoban game.

The 3D ship flying over a craft was the result of the tutorials on how to use the Gamecube development kits.

The Sokoban game I developed was for the Programming for Games 4 module assignment in which I achevied 96% for the game.

Unfortuantly I can't put my Videos of my Gamecube project on this site as they are too larger to upload. It is possible to see clips of my game along with clips of the other members of my second year class by going to: http://computing.unn.ac.uk/GamesDegree/show/cube.html and clicking on: GameCube Projects. My game is a block pushing game, you'll see the game menu and some of the gameplay.

1st and 2nd Year Work

In first year and the first semester of second year I worked on 2D games.
The first 2D game I made was Space Invaders using our tutors 2D engine.














Game: Space Invaders
My Source Code: Source Code
Engine: 2D Engine

The second 2D game I made was my Toy project. We were asked to make a toy for a small class contest. This was my toy and I got joint silver.














Game: Toy
Source Code: Source Code

This is the third 2D game I was working on during second year (never finished) for one of the programming for games modules. This was again developed using the tutors 2D engine.















Game: Jetback
Source Code: Source Code



During my spare time throughout second year I worked on one of my own projects which was a 2D space side scroller. It has a couple of bugs and is a bit "jerky" when it scrolles.















Game: Space Wars
Source Code: Source Code