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Introduction |
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Introduction
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| AFX Group 9 CS426 Anoop Bhat|Feng Huang|Xanh Trinh Last Line |
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Executive Summary |
| AFX games in association with EVL@UIC
proudly presents Last Line. Our first attempt to conquer the gaming
industry with experiences that allow the gamer to immerse themselves into
a world of fantasy and surrealism. AFX’s goal has always been to provide
the best gaming quality at the lowest price to the gamer.
AFX’s Last Line presents the scenario which is always in the back of our minds but never really mentioned because of the chaos and fear it can produce. The year is 2176, we have grown by leaps and bounds. We look towards the stars for knowledge of who we are and where we come from. Space is the final frontier and we are exploring and looking further than we’ve ever looked before. We are looking for life on other planets and perhaps even planets that we could inhabit in due time. Sadly, while we are gazing at the stars, some of the stars have been gazing back at us without us knowing it. Intelligent life does exist and its intelligence surpasses ours by light years. Creatures from the edge of a distant galaxy have spotted us and are determined to conquer Earth for themselves. We have exactly what they need, and we have plenty of it. About 12 Billion units to be exact. Enough to feed them for many more millennia. It was too late when our astronomers discovered a fleet of massive space ships on an intercept course with Earth. Our only option is to deploy the Elite Squad. The Last Line of Defense. The Elite Squad, equipped with earth’s deadliest weapon, the Gamma 9, are assigned to intercept the Garudan MegaBird fleet and their unknown weapons. Their mission, to save earth by destroying or capturing their fleet so that we can learn more about their technology and use it to save ourselves from they rest of their army. The Elite Squad members have formulated a plan to work independently and focus fire on individual Garudan MegaBirds. Their hope is to be undetected based on size and stealth capabilities. Topher is the member who is most decorated and also the focus of the camera. His personal mission is to destroy the MegaBirds and also
hopefully capture one and bring it back for further
study. |
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Game Mechanics |
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One of the most distinctive features of Last Line is its control scheme. Last Line is a single player simulation fighting game. While other simulation games have allowed the use of a mouse to emulate a joystick's functions, mouse control in such games was generally a poor alternative. Last Line, on the other hand, was designed with the limitations and advantages of that input device in mind, and as a result its mouse control works efficiently and actually enhances the gameplay. Since this game is designed primarily for PC game players, using mouse and pointing objects in a precise manner is our day to day activities. The shooting scheme of the Last Line is designed to have a target flying around screen which is controlled by the mouse. With a simple left click, player can fire a protection bomb whenever is necessary, which can great reduce the overhead of finding the right key at the critical timing and also enhance the surviving chance. Similarly, right click can boost the speed of player’s fighting jet. Not only user can use this feature to dodge
the bullets and missiles, but use player can use this button combined with
direction button to make some awesome moves in the space. While Player is
the busy with his right hand controlling the mouse, his left hand is
responsible for firing by taping on the space bar. There are a new set of
direction buttons placed direct under his finger tips, player can use them
to the do the flying combination moves. |
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Artificial Intelligence |
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At the beginning of the stage, player will be challenged by some of stationary enemies, for example, bunkers. This design is to let player start to get use to control at the early stage of Last Line so that they won’t lose their interest while at the stage one. These cannons can fire at out star ship periodically with simplest pattern. Gradually, user meets more enemy aircrafts in combination of the mobile cannon stations. As the player advances to later stage of the gameplay, player starts encountering more and more spacecrafts with different capabilities. Different enemy spacecrafts will have different flying speed and different mobility. For a smaller aircrafts, they combine three or four, depending on different stage of the game, to make up a team. Each of these enemy ships will be equipped with “radar”. If the player gets into their firing range, they would start chasing and firing at the player ship. Different type of the aircrafts has different kinds of bullets and different fire range. Eventually they will have a very close ability as the players’ in term of speed and fire power. At early stage, player can always boost his
speed and get away with it. Once player get out of the range, they will
stop chasing and go back to their original position and wait for their
prey to show up again. At the end of every stage, player will meet his
ultimate opponent. The big boss will be firing on you periodically but
with greater number of bullets and more flying patterns. The default
camera perspective is behind your ship. |
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Game Progression |
| Last Line is organized into number of
stages. Each stage consists of different enemies and different boss. Every
player successfully defeat the final boss at the end of each stage, not
only player can get points accordingly, but also some useful items like
tools to power up the his weapon to enhance player’s fighting capability
in order to take on the challenge of next stage. Within each stage, Last
Line can automatically save the progress of the gameplay after some
critical event so that player doesn’t need to replay all the parts that he
has accomplished |
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Game Elements |
| Last Line is based in the
22nd century technology and overpopulation have culminated into the
largest space exploration project ever launched. We are searching the
skies for a suitable planet for our species to inhabit.
After discovering that our planet is in grave danger from the Garudan MegaBirds, we have activated the Elite Squadron (ES) to defend our planet from doom. They are our Last Line of Defense. If they fail, then humanity will be the next meal for the Garudans. The ES’ mission is to use Earth’s deadliest weapon, the Gamma 9, to destroy the enemy ships and hopefully capture one to adapt to their technology. This would be the only way to insure our survival. The game begins with a scene of Garudan Megabirds poised at the edge of our galaxy waiting for the right moment to strike. We cut directly to the launch pad for the Elite Squadron focusing on the ship of the game’s main character, Topher. His squadron takes off and we see it clearing the atmosphere and into space. At this point he engages the Hyper-Drive and launches at galactic speeds. His ship disappears into the stars and the camera follows him. Topher’s space ship emerges from the stars and slows down out of sight of the MegaBirds. At this point, game control is handed to the player and the view is switch to the back of Topher’s ship. From this point, the game continues as the player wishes. The objective of the game is simple, destroy as many of the Garudan ships as you can in order to move on to the next level. Each level has a big boss Garudan that also needs to be destroyed in order to continue game play. During game play, Topher will encounter energy fields which can help charge his shields for longer play. Certain energy fields will also help to charge his weapons. The energy fields are only available on the first level because the first level is played in outer space. Since strange phenomenon exist in outer space, NASA has built space ships that can harness the energy fields from occurrences such as nebulae. The Gamma 9, uses concentrated light technology which was first experimented with in the early 21st Century by US Military in order to destroy nuclear missiles without detonating them. Since then, that technology has been improved greatly to provide accuracy and even greater power. The weapon which used to be able to concentrate light one million times stronger than the sun can now be shot in bursts, that is in the form of bullets. This allows the pilot to concentrate on several targets at a time. A few of the precedents of the Gamma 9 were almost identical but would have adverse affects on friendly troops. G9 fixes that problem and is neutralized if a friendly ship is in its path. We hope that the Garudan’s do not discover this feature and use it to their advantage. The game can end in two ways, we will be victorious, or worse, we will not. If we are victorious, a scene showing Topher’s return to earth and a somewhat damaged ship shall be shown. This scene will have the camera behind Topher and him flying into orbit around earth waiting to be docked at the International Space Station. With a view of the blue planet, we hope to provide to the player, the feeling that they have helped to save our only home. If Topher is not successful in defeating the enemy and does not survive the battle, we will cut to a scene of his ship exploding into a million different pieces with no trace of his remains. A sad overture will follow and a memorial plaque and a medal to demonstrate that he died with honor and in a glorious way for his planet. At this point, the player will be able to choose a new
game or to quit and exit the game. |
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Sound Effects |
| 1) Background music,
- One for the stage - A different one when the boss appears 2) Bullets - When the player fire bullets. - When a enemies/boss fire bullets. 3) Bomb - When the player fires a bomb. 4) Damage - When player gets hit with a bullet or hits a building. 5) Death - When the enemies and boss are destroyed. - When the player dies. 6) When running low on energy - When the player's energy reaches a certain point. 7) Item pickup - When player picks up an item. |
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Menus and Interface Design |
| For the menu and user controls, we will be using the
mouse. The menu options allow the user to choose a new game or load a
saved game to continue playing.
We expect the game menu to open in the following manner:
Where: New Game will load a new game with no set options.
Quit will simply quit without confirmation because we believe that confirmations make the user angry. They know exactly what they want. For the Dashboard, we have decided to show the available shield power,
ammunition count and the number of enemy killed in the form of
points. |
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Art Bible |
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Story Board |
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| ^back to top^ |
