• The world is based off real Martian environment through pictures from the actual rover and telescopes.
  
  

The Physical World

Game Characters

• Overview
  
  
  • The player is a NASA scientist remotely controlling the rover.
    
    
    

User Interface

• Overview
  
  
  • The user interface is designed for the simplified Adler Planetarium requirements. The game can be played with a mouse or, more specifically, with trackball and buttons. On the level select scene when something is selected, the letters grow. To go to the scene, the player presses the left button.
    
    
  • On Mars, there is a marker to show where the rover will go. The player can control the marker by moving it forward or backward for distance and left or right for direction. While the rover is moving the player watches.
    
    
  • To exit the scene, the player must press the right mouse button (or corresponding trackball button). It then goes back to the main screen.
    

Musical Scores and Sound Effects

• Overview
  
  
  • Right now there is no musical score attributed to the game. But the plan is to have background music for the main screen. In the scene there will be mainly sound effects.
    
    
  • Sound Design
    
    
  • The sound design works within the Finite State Machine. When the scene is created the sound effects are loaded to the scene. There are two main sound effects in the scene. They are the wind and engine noises. The wind is divided into three parts: soft, medium, and loud. One of these is played at a time. The engine noise is played whenever the rover moves. Therefore it must check to see if the rover is moving. When the rover is not moving the sound effect does not play.
    
    

Single-Player Game

• Overview
  
  
  • The game experience is supposed to take place with in a museum environment. It is supposed to be educational. Overall the game experience is suppose to be short, to let other people try.
    
    
• Story
  
  
  • You are a NASA scientist. You are remotely controlling the rover from Houston. In the Free Explore scene, you are to collect as many experiments as you can. In Escape From Endurance Crater you must find a way of the crater before nightfall.
    
    
• Hours of Gameplay
  
  
  • The Free Explore scene has unlimited game play. The Escape From Endurance Crater scene has a five minute time limit.
    
    
• Victory Conditions
  
  
  • In the Free Explore scene the player exits when he/she is done by clicking the right mouse button.
    
    
  • In the Escape From Endurance Crater the player wins when he/she successfully maneuvers out of the crater or when night falls and the rover stops.
    

Character Rendering

• Overview
  
  
  • The character is a rigid mesh, so that Tokamak physics is able to use it.
    
    

“Object Appendix”

• Rock Creation:
  
  
  • The rocks are dynamically created. First the developer creates a .bmp file with green pixels representing rocks. Load_Rocks function prints the bmp picture to the screen. Then the function reads each pixel. If it is green then it creates a rock and places it in the corresponding position in the world. Then when the program ends, the rocks are deleted.

• Overview
  
  • The following describes the key components of the physical world.
    
    
• Travel
  
  • The player chooses where the rover will go, then the rover AI chooses the amount of torque to make the rover move and the time to stop.
    
    
• Scale
  
  • We are attempting to use an accurate scale to determine the rover and the world environment
    
    
• Objects
  
  • There are three types of objects:
    
    • Rover – this is the main object. It is controlled by the user
      
    • Rocks – They are different shapes and sizes but they serve the same purpose, being used for scientific experiments.
      
    • Dust particles – they come from an emitter attached to rover’s wheels. It simulates the speed of the rover. The particles are created using Lotus Particle System, a free particle system.
      
      
  • See the Object Appendix for details on how the rocks are created in the world.
    
    
• Weather
  
  • Right now the weather is constant. In the future we would like to add dust storms.
    
    
• Day and Night
  
  • The day will slowly change into night. Since the rover relies on solar power, once night is reached the game will be over.
    
    
• Time
  
  • There is a five minute timer for the “Escape From Endurance Crater”.
    
    
• Rendering System
  
  
  • Overview
    
    
    • We used Blitz3D to develop our game. It made it easy to develop. The game is also stereoscopic 3D. This was easy to implement thanks to the GeoWall library provided by Jason Leigh
      
      
  • 2D/3D Rendering
    
    
    • Since we were developing the game in stereoscopic, we did not want to use 2D objects. Instead we used 3D lettering to make it less painful on the eyes.
      
      
• Camera
  
  
  • Overview
    
    
    • The camera is stereoscopic. It is a neat feature that allows players with the right equipment to perceive depth in the rendered imagery. There are two camera viewpoints. There is the waypoint camera and there is chase camera.
      
      
  • Waypoint Camera
    
    
    • When the rover is not moving this is the camera used. It is from the viewpoint of the rover. It can pivot 360 degrees around and 180 degrees up and down. The players then choose what direction and how far the rover is to go and the camera turns into a chase camera.
      
      
  • Chase Camera
    
    
    • While the rover moves automatically, this camera is used. It is a chase camera that is child of a pivot set behind the rover. As the rover moves faster the camera pulls back a little bit. This allows the player to see the environment that the rover belongs to and the rover itself.
      
      
• Game Engine
  
  
  • Overview
    
    
  • The Finite State Machine handles the management of the pieces very well. There are three main parts to the engine:
    
    • Load
      
    • Update
      
    • Delete
      
  • At the beginning of level everything is loaded. While the player plays the game, everything is updated. Then at the end everything is deleted.
    
    
  • Game Engine Finite State Machine
    
    
    • Main:
      
      
    • Sample class (hud, rover, particles, timer, sound, skybox):
      
      
  • Collision Detection
    
    
    • Tokamak Physics handles the collisions automatically, making collision detection very easy..