Trailer/Gameplay demo

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j5iNIp-TkKcLhIDd997omIP0-bARMat2/view?usp=sharing

Milestone 1 Proposal Alignment

For milestone 1, our team met all our goals that aligned with the milestone deliverable requirements. Extra work beyond the scope that we specified in the proposal was not delivered, specifically desigining one level and introducing a simple throwable object. As these features are not required until Milestone 2, we decided to move the work forward and address them in the coming weeks.

Milestone 1 Deliverables

Rendering

Textured Geometry

• walls, platforms, player sprite, npc sprite, zombie sprite, background (each are entities rendered with sprite textures) Entry points:
• added new sprite textures under data/textures/ for each entity type
• components.hpp:
  • defined (empty) Components for Player, Zombie, Human, Platform, Wall, Background
  • updated TEXTURE_ASSET_ID enum to include new assets
• render_system.hpp: updated texture_paths with file names of new textures
• tiny_ecs_registry.hpp: added ComponentContainer for each new type to the registry -X
• world_init.hpp: defined dimensions for each sprite
• world_init.cpp: defined functions to initialize each Entity type with the appropriate Components and appropriate constants for RenderRequest
• world_system.cpp: calls initializer for each Entity type in restart() using painter's algorithm (rendering background entities first) and with appropriate starting position.

Basic 2D Transformations

• scale, rotate, translate, reflect
• Entry point: common.cpp Line 4

Key-frame/State Interpolations

• in components.hpp line 100, we define a KeyframeAnimation component that stores frames, timer info, etc.
• in world_system.cpp line 602, we define a function to setup motion frames for entities
• in world_system.cpp line 323, we interpolate between frames over time for each entity that has a KeyframeAnimation component

Gameplay

Keyboard/Mouse Control

• A key moves player left, D key moves player right, W key makes player jump
  
  Entry point:
• world_system.pcp Line 529

Random/coded action

NPC:

• The student spawns at a random location on the screen and a constant velocity towards left or right (world_system.cpp 431 - 437).
• Once the student collides with the left or right wall, it switches direction. (world_system.cpp 257 - 262).

Zombie:

• The zombie spawns on the right side of the screen at a random height with a constant velocity (world_system.cpp 424 - 428).
• The zombie always moves towards and follows Bozo's position (world_system.cpp 271 - 282)

Well-defined game-space boundaries

• Restrict window boundaries that make sure that the main player (Bozo) doesn't exit the game space (world_system.cpp 158 - 172)
• Restrict window boundaries that make sure that the NPC doesn't exit the game space (world_system.cpp 239 - 255)
• Remove any non moving entities when they exit the boundaries. This logic will be used as we move the camera with the player (world_system.cpp 263-268).

Correct collision processing

• player - platform/wall collision, player - zombie collision, player - npc collision
  
  Entry points:
• platform collisions are implemented in a for loop in world_system.cpp 176 to 237 which uses bounding boxes to check every platform for intersection with the player entity's bounding box.
• wall collisions are implemented in a for loop in world_system.cpp 239 to 252 which pushes the player 5 pixels back when collides with the wall.
• when player collides with zombie, there will be a little jump animation and timer will be set in world_system.cpp line 456 to 482, player will rotate based on the direction of the collision happens in world_system.cpp line 292 to 309.
• npc collisions are the template in world_system.cpp line 486 to 491.

Stability

Minimal Lag

• all code

No crashes, glitches, unpredictable behaviour

• all code

Creative

[8] Basic Physics

• gravity acts on all human entities when not standing on a platform/ground
  
  Entry points:
• added offGround member to Motion struct in components.hpp
• physics_system.cpp Line 57 adds gravity velocity if the entity is a human and motion param offGround == true
• world_system.cpp Line 191 detects the intersection of the bottom of the player's bounding box with the top of the platform's bounding box and sets the offGround member to false. Changes back to true once bottom of the player's bounding box is no longer in the plane of any platform's top bounding box.

[23] Audio Feedback

• in world_system.cpp line 100-113, we initialize and load the WAV audio files, and do some basic error catching.
• in world_system.cpp line 23-33, we destroy the audio components in the WorldSystem destructor.
• in world_system.cpp line 200, we detect when the player has just landed on the top of a playform, and play a landing noise
• in world_system.cpp line 550, we play a jump sound the the player jumps
• in world_system.cpp line 481, we play a death sound as the play is killed.

Milestone 2 Proposal Alignment

For milestone 2, our team improved the gameplay by designing a more complex map, introducing multiple zombies and NPCs, adding interactions between player/NPCs (acquiring textbook) and zombie/NPCs (infection), ability to kill zombies by aiming and throwing collected textbook projectiles, implemented heuristics for zombies chasing the player and humans, introduced food items to collect, and lives system.

We also hit all other requirements by adding camera movement that follows the player (with option to zoom in/out by pressing P), sprite animation for all our characters (player, zombies, NPCs), mesh collision, a tutorial, and plenty of new visual assets to support these features.

Milestone 2 Deliverables

Improved Gameplay

Game Logic response to user input

• NPCs can die and then turn into zombies that follow the player, adding depth to the gameplay.
  • Code References:
    • Transformation logic in world_system.cpp: step() function on lines 413 - 421; 526 - 560.
    • Collision handling in world_system.cpp: handle_collisions() on lines 1181 - 1220.

Ladder interaction:

• in world_system.cpp, Line 423 checks if the entity is a player and calls updateClimbing()
• Line 862 has the implementation for updateClimbing which loops through every Climbable entity and checks if the player is touching it. If the player is touching it, allow the player to use keys W and S to climb up and down the ladder
• Line 911 has a helper function isBottomOfLadder() to resolve glitches that arise when the player is at the bottom of the ladder but should not be able to move down

Zombie heuristic/decision based movement:

• in world_system.cpp, Line 469 checks if the entity is a zombie and calls updateZombieMovement()
• Line 638 has the implementation for updateZombieMovement and is based on the following heuristics:

1. If the player is on the same level as the player, move in the direction of the player.
2. If the player is above the zombie, have the zombie move to the closest ladder of the player and climb up.
3. If the player is below the zombie, have the zombie move to the closest ladder of the player and climb down.
4. If the player is in the basement, head to the basement ladder and climb down.
5. If the player is out of the basement and the zombie is in the basement, head to the basement ladder and climb up.
6. If the zombie encounters a step, then jump over it.

• the helper function checkLevel() is implemented on Line 816
• the helper function getClosestLadder() is implemented on Line 841

Aiming Cursor:

• in world_init.cpp, line 37 implements a createBozoPointer function that spawns a cursor that attaches to the player.
• in world_system.cpp line 1387 we implement the logic for the mouse to follow the cursor.

Help: Provide basic user tutorial/help.

• Using createStaticTexture() in world_unit.cpp, we spawn a sign that explains the basic controls of the game in the center of the stage.

Winning Screen:

• Using createStaticTexture() defined in world_unit.cpp, when all the zombies have been deleted and all foods have been collected, we zoom the camera out to the full map and display a "You Win!" message.

Sprite sheet animation

• Sprite sheet component defined in components.hpp line 293
• initializeSpriteSheet creates a new sprite sheet component and binds vbo and ibo to unique buffer Id
  • Defined in render_system.cpp line 413
  • Called in zombie, student, player create functions
• updateSpriteSheetGeometryBuffer updates the coordinates on the sprite sheet
  • Defined in render_system.cpp line 435
  • Called in RenderSystem::step line 260

New integrated assets

• Introduction of New Spike Mesh Assets:

  • Spikes increase the game's challenge and visual appeal.
    • Code References:
      • Asset initialization in world_system.cpp within the restart() function.
      • Definitions and shaders in components.hpp (lines 42 - 45), spike.fs.glsl, spike.vs.glsl, and spike.obj.

• new background assets initialized with createBackground()

• floors are created with fixed sized platforms stacked horizontally using createPlatforms()

• steps are created with stacking platforms at an offset createSteps()

• different length ladders created by stacking 3 different sprite assets createClimbable()

Mesh-based collision detection

• Enhanced Collision Detection Function:
  • Improved function for interactions between player and mesh assets.
    • Code Reference:
      • bool checkCollision on lines 46 to 74 of physics_system.cpp.

Basic user tutorial/help

Playability

Food collection:

• in world_init.cpp, Line 410 has createFood() method
• in world_system.cpp, Line 1056 creates the food entities
• Line 1239 checks if the player has collided with the food and adds it to the overlay component

Player lives:

• in world_init.cpp, Line 410 has createHeart() method
• in world_system.cpp, Line 1066 creates the hearts
• Line 1096 checks the player's lives, adds the player to the lostLifeTimer component, and moves the player back to the starting position
• Line 239 checks if the player is in the "lost life" state, dims the player, and makes the player invincible for a small amount of time

Overlay rendering for food/lives feedback:

• in render_system.cpp Line 238, the logic blocks splits the call to drawTexturedMesh between the side scroller projection matrix and the basic projection matrix depending on if the overlay component has the entity
• in world_system.cpp, Line 1241 adds the specific food entity to the overlay component, so that it can be rendered statically on top of the side scrolling image
• in world_init.cpp, the createHeart() method directly adds the heart to the overlay component

2 minutes of non-repeptitive gameplay

Projectile system:

• in world_system.cpp handle_collisions(), when player collides with human NPC, player receives a book and will hold it. The number of books received will be shwon on title.
• in world_system.cpp on_mouse_button(), player will launch the book when releasing the mouse left button, the direction is the same as the blue pointer

Stability

Minimal Lag

• all code

Consistent game resolution

• world_system.cpp line 82: allow window to be resized
• render_system_init.cpp line 23: keep the aspect ratio consistent
• the viewport is resized on each call to drawToScreen() in render_system.cpp

No crashes, glitches, unpredictable behaviour

Bugs fixed including:

• mouse not pointing at cursor after zoomed in, fixed by calculate relative position to the camera
• camera splits into 2 sometimes, fixed by changing the logic of timer

Creative

[21] Make the camera follow the player

• createProjectionMatrix determines the camera window dimensions based on player position
• defined in render_system.cpp line 265
• called in RenderSystem::draw line 229

[24] Basic integrated assets

• new sprites for platforms, walls, and ladders
• (created) several sprites for background components (outdoor background, indoor background layers, nest egg)
• (created) blackboard sprite for user tutorial
• (created) book projectile
• 3 spritesheets for our characters
• 6 differnt sprites for collectable food items
• 1 new heart sprite for player lives
• (created) spike mesh object file
• (created) arrow sprite for projectile direction

Milestone 3 Proposal Alignment

For milestone 3, our team added a tutorial level plus 2 new main levels. We integrated a variety of creative features to add depth and interactive elements to liven the gameplay. Level transitions, difficulty progressions, new enemies, and more varied level designs were introduced to balance the gameplay.

Milestone 3 Deliverables

Playability

5 minutes of non-repeptitive gameplay

• Designed new tutorial level. Asset information stored in world_init.hpp (the first element in the asset vectors)
• Designed new Wreck Beach level with asset information stored in world_init.hpp and rendering information stored in 2_beach.json.
• Designed and implemented new library level.

Robustness

Proper memory management

Extensive testing was done to ensure that no instantiated entities and their allocated memories were unfreed after they have been killed or otherwise left the world state.

User input

No known user inputs are able to crash the game.

Real-time (no lag)

The only runtime bottleneck we discovered was at the beginning of the game when all the textures were being loaded into the buffer in render_systems.init. This introduced a minor amount of lag at the beginning of the game, and we got around it by adding a loading screen at the start of the game at main.cpp:line 46

Stability

M2 Bug Fix - game pauses randomly

• Fixed infinite do-while loop. Replaced with for-loop. Changed logic to randomly pick a spawn position and try a set number of times to pick a position that is off screen. If there's no success within the max number of tries, no spawn occurs.
• Entry point world_system.cpp WorldSystem::step() line 238 - there are two for-loops, one for spawning new zombies, another for spawning new npcs

M2 Bug Fix - mesh collision

• Added use cases for some collision configurations. Now, a mesh and bounding box collision will be detected if no vertices of the mesh are inside the bounding box (for instance, if the box is fully inside the mesh).

Minimal Lag

Consistent game resolution

No crashes, glitches, unpredictable behaviour

• Fixed framrate dependent jump height by multiplying gravity factor by elapsed time in each step (physics_system.cpp line 235)

Creative

[2] Parallax scrolling backgrounds

• Background component stores depth value and camera object (entry point: components.hpp line 215)
• Projections matrix adjusted for each scrolling background based on depth value (entry point: rendering_system.cpp RenderSystem::draw() line 305)

[3] Complex geometry

• Added a complex mesh for Spike Wheels with different parts having different colour (wheel.obj, wheel.fs.glsl, wheel.vs.glsl, render_system.cpp (line 136 - 165))
• Initial Spike Meshes from M2 with gradient coloring (spike.obj, spike.fs.glsl, spike.vs.glsl, render_system.cpp (line 109 - 135))

[9] Complex perscribed motion

• In physics_system.cpp, Lines 240 to 286 calculate the Bezier motion for different entities
• Quadratic Bezier defines the motion for the spikeball firing from the cannon on the beach level
• Cubic Bezier defines the motion for the flying apple on the beach level

[10] Precise Collisions

• Implemented precise mesh - mesh collision detection using Separating Axis Theorem (physics_system.cpp (line 17 - 109))
• Implemented response elastic collision between Spikes and Wheels (physics_system.cpp (line 109 - 134))

[19] Reloadability

using jsoncpp library from https://github.com/open-source-parsers/jsoncpp downloaded during build using cmake each level's entities and environment variables are described in a json file under code/data/levels restart_level() loads in the json for the current level world_system.cpp line 1123 and initializes all entities of that level using the data last level completed and high scores for each level are saved to code/data/levels/save_state.json in world_system.cpp step() line 184 game starts at level after the last successfully completed when restarted, high score is displayed in top window bar for each level

Milestone 4 Proposal Alignment

In milestone 4, we added 6 new unique levels to the game as well as creative features like distortion, lighting effects, complex geometry and collisions, a pause function that triggers a menu, and multiple cut scenes for story elements.

Milestone 4 Deliverables

Stability

Prior missed milestone features & bug fixes

Called Mix_FreeChunk() for all sounds to resolve memory leaks.

No crashes, glitches, unpredictable behaviour

Playability

10 minutes of non-repetitive gameplay

Following is the final level order(6 new ones added):
Bus Level Bus Loop Level Street Level IKB Library Level Boss Main Mall Level AMS Nest Level Wreck Beach Level Magic Forest Level Nightmare Sewer Level Boss Lab Level

User Experience

Comprehensive tutorial

A tutorial level is added, including step-by-step instructions on moving, collecting & throwing projectiles, avoiding dangerous, game winning objectives (data/levels/5_bus.json, data/textures/tutorial)

Optimize user interaction and REPORT it

Path for the doc:
docu/UBZ User Experience Report.pdf

Creative

[1] Simple rendering effects

• Adjusts brightness of texture fragments based on distance to light sources (textured.fs.glsl)
• Light sources are defined as point locations with a intensity drop-off value (world_system.cpp line 1472)
• Light vectors are passed as uniforms to the fragment shader (render_system.cpp line 95)
• Vertex position in world-coordinates is passed from vertex shader to fragment shader (textured.vs.glsl)

[3] Complex geometry

• Added a complex mesh for Spike Wheels with different parts having different colour (wheel.obj, wheel.fs.glsl, wheel.vs.glsl, render_system.cpp (line 136 - 165))
• Initial Spike Meshes from M2 with gradient coloring (spike.obj, spike.fs.glsl, spike.vs.glsl, render_system.cpp (line 109 - 135))

[10] Precise Collisions

• Implemented precise mesh-mesh collision detection using Separating Axis Theorem (physics_system.cpp (line 17 - 109))
• Implemented response elastic collision between Spikes and Wheels (physics_system.cpp (line 109 - 134))

[27] Story elements

4 cutscenes are added. The scenes are merged into textures and rendered as sprites sheets(data/textures/cutscenes) The cutscenes are loaded into the game as empty levels with isCutscene boolean set to be true(data/levels/cut1-4.json). A countdown timer will be set to the number of sprites * switch time when the cutscene starts playing(world_system.cpp(line 1673 - 1677), world_init.cpp(line 730 - 754)). After timer hits 0, curr_level will be incremented and restart_level() will be called(world_system.cpp(line 468 - 476))

[Custom] Menu and Pause UI

3 new game states are defined (MENU, PLAYING, and PAUSE) All transitions are handled in main which renders the main menu assets and the pause menu assets. Hover states are detected and click areas are detected to determine transition states per level. This applies to both the pause menu ui and the main menu ui. world_system.cpp line 1513 in on_key() handles pressing ENTER to toggle pause flag added simple UI that appears on the screen when the game is paused on line 1622 in world_system.cpp:on_key game loop is stalled and key/mouse inputs are disabled while pausing main.cpp line 46 records duration of the pause to subtract it from the elapsed time in the main game loop line 56

Project References

Level ending sound effect - pixabay.com
Collected item sound effect - pixabay.com
Tutorial background music - pixabay.com
Wreck Beach level background music - "Tahitian Remix Despacito" by Tulei Magic Forest Level Assets - craftpix.net - TINY FOREST TILESET PLATFORMER PIXEL ART Lab level bgm - https://www.chosic.com/download-audio/28510/

Library level assets:

• Background music - Harry Potter theme song
• craftpix.net - FREE MEDIEVAL TILESET PIXEL ART PACK
• craftpix.net - MEDIEVAL PIXEL ART TILESET
• https://pff_nox.artstation.com/projects/8e3wkQ

Beach level assets - craftpix.net

Main Mall boss level background - https://twitter.com/UBC/status/1600198159178792961

Separating Axis Theorem: github.com/winstxnhdw/2d-separating-axis-theorem

Tutorial level assets:
craftpix.net - FREE SKY WITH CLOUDS BACKGROUND PIXEL ART SET craftpix.net - FREE BILLBOARDS AND ADVERTISING PIXEL ART

Lab level assets: - craftpix.net

Nightmare Sewer level assets: Sprites - craftpix.net Background Music - background music = Ghost Story by Kevin MacLeod | https://incompetech.com/ Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Magic Forest level assets: Sprites - craftpix.net Background music - Serge Quadrado Music https://pixabay.com/music/horror-scene-scary-forest-90162/

Additional audio assets: To be Continued music - "Grim Grinning Ghosts (Electro Swing Mix)" by Glenn Gatsby and Ashley Slater

Cutscenes:
www.shutterstock.com pixabay.com