HEX-A-GONE. Group 3 Chessie Garcia Ethan Hoewisch Paul Morales Cindy Yaw

Transcription

1 HEX-A-GONE Group 3 Chessie Garcia Ethan Hoewisch Paul Morales Cindy Yaw Winter 2008

2 Introduction HEX-A-GONE is a puzzle game which revolves around clearing hexagons that attach to the center hexagon. Hexagons will initially fall from the top of the screen. Your job is to catch each falling hexagon with the center hexagon known as the master hexagon. The master hexagon can be rotated and shifted as needed using the A, S, W, D controls and the left and right arrow keys. When three hexagons of the same color touch each other, they will disappear. When this happens, you re awarded more points. However, as you gain more points, you will increase your difficulty and more things will happen that will try and stop you from achieving a high score. Best of luck to you! Puzzle Genre Video games are primarily always categorized in a genre whether it be a shooter game, maze, action, adventure, etc. For HEX-A-GONE, we chose to implement a puzzle type game. The reason for our choice stems from us wanting create a rather simple yet challenging game. Puzzle games usually require the player to solve logic puzzles. However, not all puzzle games fit this description. Some arcade games, like the ones we used as inspiration for our game (Bust-a-Move, Tetris, and Bejeweled), incorporate gameplay that is dependent on quick reflexes or hand and eye coordination rather than logic. Our game incorporates these features to condition the player to succeed in a game where they have to align similar object as the fall. Strategy When playing the HEX-A-GONE, we suggest the following in order to be successful during gameplay. When the game begins, focus your attention on the hexagons already attached to the Master Hexagone rather than focusing on the falling hexagons. This way, it will be easier determine where certain hexagons should be placed. Design The Idea Behind a Game Games in the puzzle genre typically implement any combination of three core mechanics. First, a game will give the player control of a character that must navigate an environment and circumvent obstacles in order to reach a goal. Games like Chip s Challenge and the more recent Portal use this core mechanic in their design. Second, a game will task a player with dropping objects in order to create shapes. Tetris s core mechanic fits into this mold where the player must create solid shapes out of smaller, oddly configured shapes. Third and last, a game will task the player with aligning objects to create combinations of a specified number of similar objects (usually three) which will remove those objects from the game s display. Bejeweled is a popular game that epitomizes this core mechanic. There are hybrid games as well that implement two or more of these core mechanics. For example, Lumines tasks the player with dropping objects to create structures of like-colored objects. HEX-A-GONE fits into this latter category, as it involves both creating structures with dropped objects and aligning objects to create like-colored structures. HEX-A-GONE s core mechanic also features a concept that is oddly missing from the genre as a whole: rotation. This addition makes HEX-A-GONE immediately stand out from

3 the crowd and was implemented for that very purpose. Being able to rotate an entire playing field gives the player a unique frame of reference that differs from the ability to rotate objects in games like Tetris and Lumines. From the outset HEX-A-GONE was designed to be unique among games in the genre while still providing familiar trappings falling objects and the need to align these objects in specific combinations in order to hook the player with an unfamiliar concept while still being accessible. Rules at a Glance In HEX-A-GONE players control a unique hexagon called the Master Hexagon. This object can be moved horizontally, vertically, and rotated in fifteen degree increments. The player s objective is to use the Master Hexagon to collect falling hexagons by colliding with them. When the Master Hexagon hits a hexagon, that hexagon attaches to the Master Hexagon on the face where the collision occurred and becomes a part of an abstract structure called a hexagon grid. This structure consists of the Master Hexagon itself at its center and any hexagons that have attached to the Master Hexagon or other hexagons that have also attached themselves to the Master Hexagon. This structure grows as more and more hexagons attach themselves to it, and can be moved and rotated in order to place falling hexagons anywhere on the structure. In HEX-A-GONE a player loses once the hexagon grid becomes too large. The player gains a single point for every hexagon that successfully attaches to the hexagon grid but must be aware that attaching too many hexagons causes the game to end. To combat this hexagons of randomly chosen colors appear. When three or more hexagons of the same color are connected to each other within the hexagon grid, those hexagons are removed from the hexagon grid, giving the player room to breathe as well as an exponentially increased amount of points. Thus the player must maintain a balance between having enough hexagons inside the hexagon grid to allow for constant clearing (and the points that come with it) but not so many hexagons that a few additional attachments cause the game to end. Feedback Loops Since the player must maintain a balance between having enough hexagons to clear combinations from the hexagon grid and having too many hexagons that a few more hexagon attachments causes the player to lose the game, several feedback loops are introduced around this dilemma. Other feedback loops are present in HEX-A-GONE s point system and in its theme system, a particular feature that will be elaborated on in a later section. A negative feedback loop can be exhibited whenever a player s hexagon grid grows too large and the game ends with a negative result. Although gathering hexagons is necessary, negligently and haphazardly gathering hexagons is punished. This way a player is reminded that the objective of the game is to gain points by clearing hexagons off the screen. This act that is worth more points than simply successfully attaching hexagons and keeps the player from losing the game. A converse positive feedback loop can be seen when a player attempts to keep their hexagon grid from growing too large. Players are awarded an exponentially greater number of points for clearing hexagons than simply attaching them to the hexagon grid. This keeps the player from losing the game and gives them more incentive to continue clearing hexagons through point awards. A similar positive feedback loop can be exhibited in the fact that doing well in the game gives the player a chance to keep doing well, as every three hexagons cleared from the playing field are three less hexagons that contribute to the growth of the

4 hexagon grid and losing the game. Finally, a positive feedback loop appears in the presentation of HEX-A-GONE s different themes. After a certain point themes change, and doing well in the game allows a player to witness the different themes available within the game. This new experience provides an inventive for players to continue to perform well within the game, and the longer a player performs well, the more themes he or she will witness. Creating Flow Themes were implemented within HEX-A-GONE to give the player an environment where he or she could become entranced in while playing the game. Themes consist of a background, scrolling or static, background music, and a set of sound effects. There are separate sound effects for the movement of the Master Hexagon, clockwise rotation, counterclockwise rotation, instances where hexagons attach to the Master Hexagon and the hexagon grid, and instances where hexagons are cleared from the playing field. These sound effects complement the music, which in turn complements the background to create an entrancing visual and aural environment. The various themes have an effect on the gameplay due to the drop speed of the hexagons being synchronized to the beat of the background music. As a player progresses through HEX-A-GONE the themes change to feature more intense music and by extension a more challenging game. This shift in difficulty allows a player to ease themselves into the game with a slower paced theme. Eventually, it changes over time to a more intense theme so long as the player continues to succeed in the game. In this manner HEX-A-GONE caters to beginner players while providing more experienced players with an increasingly more difficult challenge that keeps them from being bored. As the speed of the game increases, players have to contend with their hexagon grid growing larger at a faster rate and must think more quickly as to where to attach hexagons and which already attached hexagons to clear. Flow is achieved when the player attempts to balance continually clearing hexagons and having enough attached hexagons to clear but not enough to force the game to end. This flow is enhanced by the themes present within the game, where every hexagon drops to the beat of the music and every movement, hexagon attachment, and hexagon clearing the player accomplishes contributes to the music playing. At this point the player is not only concerned with playing the game but with creating music. On top of all this is the scoring system implemented in HEX-A-GONE. Players are rewarded for successfully attaching hexagons to the hexagon grid, and every point they gain is tempered by the realization that their structure is one hexagon closer to losing the game. This adds a level of anxiety while keeping the player actively engaged with the game. However, hexagon clearing allows the player to gain an exponential number of points, allowing players to risk having multiple attached hexagons for the sake of clearing them and gaining a greater amount of points. This risk-reward system also contributes to flow within HEX-A-GONE. Making a Game Matter Making a game matter to a player is a difficult task. Making a puzzle game matter, where there is usually nothing that attaches the player to it emotionally, nor is there usually anything for the player to compete against besides his or her own high score, is an even more difficult task. Several features in HEX-A-GONE combat this and make the game meaningful for the player.

5 First, the core mechanic of the game rotation of the is rarely implemented in puzzle games. This feature immediately makes an impact on the player, immediately gaining their interest in how it works and why it matters within the rules of the game. It is used both as a hook and a vital gameplay device. The concept that objects aren t moved, but collected is an equally rare feature that also acts as a hook and gameplay device. Once the hooks have done their job in gaining the player s interest, that interest is kept with the use of themes and HEX-A-GONE s scoring system. The themes act as a visual and aural point of interest and potentially give the player something emotional to attach to. Because backgrounds, music, and sound effects are selected to complement each other within a theme, sound effects can be used to literally create music. The scoring system in the meanwhile tracks a player s success. This gives the player a constant frame of reference for him or her to track their progress. It also gives them something to use to compete with other players who ve played HEX-A-GONE. Additionally, it reminds the player that they have been rewarded much more for clearing hexagons than merely attaching hexagons, since the former is much more challenging than the latter. As the challenge of the game increases due to faster drop speeds and additional hexagon colors, the player finds himself or herself in flow, that important state that hinges on the razor s edge between boredom and anxiety. The better a player performs, the more the game challenges that player to perform well, and this push and shove feedback continually forces the player to concentrate at the task at hand to overcome an ever-increasing but eversurmountable challenge. Once a player loses the game, he or she will find themselves with a score quantifying their performance, and can use this to compare how others fared at the same game. Reasons for Rules At the end of the day, rules have to matter. They must add to the game experience, not detract from it, nor be unnecessary. Every rule in HEX-A-GONE was implemented for a purpose, and having no unnecessary rules allows the player to concentrate on the game without worrying about anything that wasn t immediately apparent. A player is given the ability to move the Master Hexagon and rotate it. The combination of vertical and lateral movement and rotations allows the player to attach hexagons at any point on the hexagon grid. A player is limited in their movements in that they can only move and rotate in fixed increments. This decision was made to allow the player to concentrate on their position and the angle of their hexagon grid and not on the act of moving or rotating. Hexagons can only attach on a face of the Master Hexagon or any hexagon within the hexagon grid. This rule was implemented to make hexagon attachment immediately understandable for the player. It was also implemented to ensure that a structure of hexagons would have surfaces facing in only one of six directions, again to make hexagon attachment simple and immediately understandable. Points are awarded for every successful hexagon attachment. This was done to remind the player that they must attach hexagons to proceed successfully in the game. Even more points are awarded for clearing clusters of hexagons, and this was done to remind the player that even though they need to have hexagons within the hexagon grid, it is far more important to clear them from the grid to keep it from growing too large and creating a situation where the player loses the game. Hexagons are given random colors to add an element of randomness to the game, and to keep hexagon clearing from being too easy. The requirement of having at least three

6 hexagons attached to each other in any combination was created to give the player a condition where hexagons could be cleared. This number was chosen because it was conceptually simple to remember and not too simple to continually clear hexagons; the case of having at least two attached hexagons would have appeared too often within the game to be considered challenging. Finally, hexagons appear from other sides of the screen in order to add another random element to the game. This keeps the player on their toes while challenging the player to remember that rotations are a key component of the game. It is far quicker to rotate the Master Hexagon to attach a hexagon than it is to move the entire hexagon grid in place to catch it. Designing Meaningful Play HEX-A-GONE s design succeeds because it allows for meaningful play. The game itself is emergent, since strategies dictate a player s success and not a few predefined sequences of actions. Its core mechanics are designed to pique a player s interest, and its various features keep the player interested, either in the themes, the continually increasing difficulty of the game, or the desire to attain a high score. Finally, its rules engage the player and actually give the game meaning, giving a player reasons to continue playing. HEX-A- GONE allows a player to achieve flow, and this perhaps is the definitive reason why it provides meaningful play. Stages a Player Goes Through When Making a Choice 1. What happened before the player was given a choice? The only option that players are given at the beginning of the game consist of rotating the Master Hexagon. Before, players were given a choice of moving the master hexagon both vertically and horizontally. Players seemed familiar with this form of play and quickly adjusted to the game. Thus, the player could make their own choices pertaining to the placement of the falling hexagons. 2. How is the possibility of a choice conveyed to the player? Although the option of motion for both vertical and horizontal movement was not added until the second draft, players saw that they had the option to move the Master Hexagon as a whole with all of its attachments as opposed to the individual pieces falling. The options are also displayed at the beginning of the game where the player is conditioned on which buttons to press and how to move to avoid losing. We also took into consideration the possibility for a player getting frustrated while playing the game. So, we decided to add a Pause/Play button to give the player a chance to step away from the game and re-orient themselves which ultimately ended up being a positive addition. 3. How did the player make the choice? After the second draft was finished with the added motion to left, right, up and down, the players began to see chances to increase their opportunity to survive by using the designated motion buttons to their advantage. If the players had made previous mistakes placing the small hexagons, they then have the option to move all the way to the bottom of the screen thereby increase their time for decision making.

7 4. What is the result of the choice? Usually, this part of the player s decision making process would ultimately let us know how the player is going to affect their next move in the near future. However, our game is set to have a certain level of uncertainty. By having random colors drop, depending on the players choice of placement, he or she might save themselves and eventually reverse the effects of previous mistakes with the choices they make. Depending on the choices the player makes, the player could either get one point for successfully attaching a small hexagons to the Master Hexagon, ten for successfully clearing a chain of three, or continuously clearing groups of three and adding points to the multiplier to quickly reward the player for how well they are playing. 5. How is the outcome conveyed? In the top right corner of the game screen, notice that there are status indicators such as a Score, Multiplier, and difficulty level. The outcomes of a player s choices are conveyed on those three categories. As a player progresses in skill level the score increases and at times, multiplies due to chains of combos. Additionally, the difficulty of the hexagons being dropped goes up to balance out the amount of flow generated in each level. Ultimately, the player is rewarded due to the positive feedback loop implemented in our game. During playtesting this method seemed to be very rewarding to the players given that we do not have a high score sheet. It somewhat spiked a sense of competitiveness in all the players. Implementation Organization Hex-a-gone employs several different objects, stored as Movie Clips, to represent the major elements of the game. Each hexagon in the game has six separate movie clips inside it, one for each side, to aid in hit detection. Each hexagon also has a variable to represent its color, and another to represent any special ability of that hexagon. Additionally, Hex-a-gone uses an off-screen Movie Clip with an internal time-line to create the falling hexagons and manage the difficulty level. Hex-a-gone also maintains a two-dimensional array, the Master Array, at root level to facilitate clearing the hexagons. To represent the bounding hexagon, the game simply uses a Movie Clip attached to the Master Hexagon. To play sound and change the background, the game uses a simple method at the root layer. This allows any code, anywhere in the document, to play sound effects or change the background. While allowing global access to something as potentially distracting as a background presents a risk, it justifies itself by enabling a high level of integration, allowing seemingly insignificant events to have their own special sound effects. Similarly, storing variables representing the player's score, difficulty level, and speed of falling hexagons at the root level not only made accessing the variables easy, but allows for easy expansion (such as a feature where clearing red hexagons slowed down the next few hexagons) and access.

8 Game Objects As the lower half of Figure X illustrates, the game operates in a loop, constantly dropping hexagons towards the center of the stage and checking for conditions to award the player points or cause the player to lose. One of each hexsimple's sides causes it to move towards the center of the stage, based on its position when it was created and the drop speed variable. Each frame, the (attached) hexagons, including the Master Hexagon, check each of their sides to see if it has collided with the dropping hexsimple. If it has, the colliding hexagon attaches a new hexagon with a certain x and y offset (to give the illusion that the two hexagons are conjoined along the colliding side) to itself. Then, the colliding hexagon inserts the new hexagon into the Master Array and checks to see if the attached hexagon is in a chain of same-colored hexagons. If it is, the game removes those hexagons, triggers any special abilities those hexagons may have, and awards the player points based on the number of hexagons cleared and the chain multiplier. The chain multiplier is incremented every time the player clears some hexagons, and is reset to 1 when the player fails to clear some hexagons with a falling hexagon. The player may control the Master Hexagon with the keyboard. The Master Hexagon contains some Action Script that checks for keyboard input and reacts accordingly. Each attached hexagon, however, does not contain any containing Action Script for keyboard

9 control since it is attached to the Master Hexagon, any movement or rotation to the Master Hexagon applies to the attached hexagons. This attachment enabled us to facilitate input and more easily control the hexagons with code. Another code decision that made the game easier to conceptualize was the color of falling and attached hexagons. In order to get hexagons to change color, we used associated a Color object with the hexagon, then applied a hexadecimal color. This rather simple process also let us get the color of a particular falling hexagon to set the color of the attached hexagon. Major Issues Throughout the development of Hex-a-gone, we encountered several problems which were difficult to design solutions for. The first was attaching hexagons to the Master Hexagon. We had difficulty figuring out how to determine which side of the hexagon a falling hexagon had hit, but Dane helped us through by adding the Side Movie Clips to the interior of the hexagons and straightening out our attachment code. Losing the game also stood as a point of difficulty. The player went from being unable to lose, no matter how many hexagons the player attached, to being able to lose with no particular certainty, to losing whenever he or she attached a hexagon to a certain side on the Master Hexagon, to losing whenever he or she attached a hexagon to any side of the Master Hexagon, and finally to losing once the attached hexagon would not fit into the Master Array. This entire process took no more than three weeks. Also, clearing hexagons proved to be a challenge for creating a meaningful data representation, an effective algorithm for removing the hexagons, and a reason why the algorithm failed to clear all of the hexagons all of the time. Thankfully, we found a hint at that showed us how to translate a hexagonal grid into an easily-stored two dimensional array. Once we had a data structure to represent the hexagons attached to the Master Hexagon, the algorithm followed naturally after. However, the method used to remove the hexagons from the game removed the hexagon from which called the method, halting the removal of the other hexagons. We fixed this by moving the method to the root layer. Sadly, we did not discover and remedy this flaw until after the presentation, thus negatively impacting our play testing. Iterative Development We followed an iterative design process in the creation of Hex-a-gone, and reaped the benefits of frequently play testing and integrating small features rapidly. The Process We began by creating a Master Hexagon and adding controls to rotate it. Soon after, we added controls to move it vertically. Then, we created falling hexagons and allowed them to attach to the Master Hexagon. Not long after, we gave the player the ability to move the Master Hexagon horizontally. After this, we implemented scoring and clearing. Next, we added music and backgrounds. Then, for lack of inspiration in the bug-fixing department, we added the increasing difficulty, more hexagon colors, a hexagon to let the players know how close to losing they were, and the ability for hexagons to drop from more locations than just the top of the screen. Penultimately, we fixed the hexagon-clearing bug and tweaked some

10 game parameters. Lastly, we added a Pause feature to let the player pause the game. Evolution When we were brainstorming ideas for a game to implement, our initial idea was a maze game in a store setting where players would have to find items on a their list while they maneuver around obstacles in the store. At the last brainstorming meeting, we completely scrapped that idea and produced HEX-A-GONE. The main reason for the switchover arose from implementation concerns about the shopping game. We thought the idea would be great and fun but trying to sketch out algorithms to describe our gameplay seemed pretty hard. With HEX-A-GONE, it was much easier to visualize the logic behind the features. From its original concept, our game did not drastically change as a result of play testing, since all play testers generally agreed that we had a good concept. At first, players required an explanation of the game's objectives, so we added a Rules section to give the player the controls and rules of the game before he or she started playing. Following this, players thought that rotating the Master Hexagon by 60º per key press was a bit much, as it interfered with their ability to attach hexagons to the sides of the long arms that would tend to form at that stage of development. So, we shrunk the rotation factor down to 30º, and finally 15º, giving the player a noticeable rotation amount while still giving him or her control of hexagons a distance away from the Master Hexagon. Once we changed that, each player enjoyed rotating the Master Hexagon and attaching hexagons, but was rather worried about the lack of horizontal movement, the flaky hexagon clearing, and the inability to see what it was that made them lose the game. Once we implemented those features, players were able to enjoy the game much more since they could manipulate the Master Hexagon much more naturally, anticipate which hexagons would disappear, and predict how far they could stack hexagons before losing. Once this was done, players wanted to be able to see their final score after losing, so we added the player's final score to the game over screen. Over the course of Hex-a-gone's development, we felt that simply creating large hexagon clusters and gaining a massive number of points was too easy and too rewarding for the player. To this end, we implemented the chaining feature. This new strategic option added a good amount of challenge and risk for the player, since clearing several groups in a row is largely dependent on the colors of the falling hexagons, and, if the player accumulates several groups of two same-colored hexagons, he or she soon puts him or herself in danger of losing. Some of our play testers requested that we add a Pause button, so we did. Players of Hex-a-gone may now pause the game, disabling all hexagon movement and rotation. Dropped Features As a result of play testing, we reduced the number of possible hexagon colors from six to five, since we found that it was simply too hard to take advantage of the streak multiplier with six colors. With five colors of hexagons at the highest difficulty, our play testers still had a challenge creating hefty chains, but were able to pull it off occasionally. Simultaneously, we increased the number of points needed to reach the next difficulty level. This decrease gives the player the chance to make good on any possible chains he or she may have planned before hexagons of an additional color begin appearing on screen. By making small improvements to Hex-a-gone rapidly, we were able to judge the game's progress and shift it towards a more fun game.

11 When we were brainstorming ideas for a game to implement, our initial game was a maze game in a store setting where players would have to find items on a their list while they maneuver around obstacles in the store. At the last brainstorming meeting, we completely scrapped that idea and produced HEX-A-GONE. The main reason for the switchover arose from implementation concerns about the shopping game. We thought the idea would be great and fun but trying to sketch out algorithms to describe our gameplay seemed pretty hard. With HEX-A-GONE, it was much easier to visualize the logic behind the features. Future Work In our original design, we had planned on implementing clusters of three hexagons falling down that will be caught by the master hexagon. This would have increased the level of difficulty in the game and made it more challenging for players. For example, a player may have wanted one specific color in the cluster to attach to two other hexagons of the same color. But once those three hexagons clear, what about the other two hexagons that were attached in the cluster? These other colors may have block spaces for other hexagons to clear. We removed this feature because it was simply too difficult for us to design given the time frame we had to work in. Our other feature that was eliminated is compacting in which the hexagons surrounding the master hexagon would move closer to it if there was a gap. The absence of the feature caused us to also remove the falling clusters because the clump of hexagons attached to the master hexagon would start growing much too rapidly. Without the compacting feature, it would have been difficult to place new falling clusters into reasonable spaces without hitting the leftovers of other clusters. This feature would have allowed players to set up chains like in Tetris Attack by Nintendo where a trio of the same color would disappear, the objects would compact, and if another trio of the same color was formed from that result, the player would gain much more points. This chain would dramatically increase the score until no more chains could be made from compacting. In our current version of HEX-A-GONE, we have defined the controls for the player. However, the player may not like the face that A, S, W and D are used to control the position of the master hexagon and the arrow keys are used for rotation. Maybe they would prefer to have the controls switched so that the arrow keys control the position and the letter keys control the rotation. In the future, we would like to provide these players the opportunity to define the controls for themselves. This would allow them to customize the game to their preferences and maybe decrease their learning curve and eliminate frustration over controls. Background themes played a major part in our game in keeping the player alert and entertained. For now, we only have a few themes but for future implementation, we would like to add many more themes. This gives the player something to look forward to. We would also increase the complexity of the theme such as playing videos once the player reaches a high difficulty. This too creates another challenge for the player because they now get to focus on two things: watching the background that they worked so hard to achieve while trying to stay alive. Because of the internal conflict created within the player s mind, they might sometimes have to choose one thing to ignore (probably the background) if they intend to continue playing. One exciting feature that we would have liked to implemented, given more time, are bombs. These special hexagons would have different clearing methods. One would clear hexagons within a certain range. Another kind would clear only a certain color like all reds. However, in order for this bomb to set off, it must group together with two other hexagons of the same color. Whichever two colors this bomb comes in contact with is the color that will

12 disappear. The rarest of them all would be a bomb that clears everything, giving the player a clean slate to start afresh. Conclusion As we wind down to the end, we as a team feel that our game is unique, fun, and challenging. When we first conceptualized the idea of rotating the playing field rather than the falling pieces, we were excited to add a unique aspect that is not often seen in drop down puzzle games. This added the challenging aspect for the player, creating meaningful gameplay. Based on our play testing, we took pride in the fact that play testers suggested minimal tweaks to our game in order to better their experience instead of attacking the core mechanics of the game.