Space War Mission Commando User Manual André Furtado February, 2007
Contents 1 INTRODUCTION... 3 2 INSTALLING THE GAME... 4 3 GAME DYNAMICS... 5 4 MISSIONS... 8 4.1 MISSION 1: SQUAD TRAINING... 8 4.2 MISSION 2: ABILITY TEST... 8 4.3 MISSION 3: ASTRONAUT RESCUE... 9 5 KNOWN ISSUES... 10 6 FINAL REMARKS... 11 7 LINKS... 12
1 Introduction This document presents instructions to install and play Space War Mission Commando, a PC game submitted to the Warm-Up Challenge of the XNA Dream Build Play contest. A video demonstration of the game is available and can be downloaded at http://www.cin.ufpe.br/~awbf/temp/xna/swmcdemo.wmv. The game is focused on innovating the player s experience, enabling a new interaction level though voice recognition. By using a microphone connected to his computer, the player can launch orders to his squad, composed by the pilots Alpha and Delta, while still controlling his own spaceship with the gamepad. Together, the player and his squad face missions beyond the traditional space battle, including an ability test which requires dangerous maneuvers through asteroids and the rescue of an astronaut lost in space. Such challenges and interaction mechanisms provide new collaborative and strategic aspects to the original Space War game. Space War Mission Commando 3 of 12
2 Installing the game Before running Space War Mission Commando, some steps are required: Install Microsoft Speech SDK (file SpeechSDK51.exe available at http://www.microsoft.com/speech/download/sdk51/); Install Microsoft.NET Framework 3.0 Redistributable Package, available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=10cc340b-f857-4a14-83f5-25634c3bf043&displaylang=en; Ensure the voices Microsoft Mike and Microsoft Mary are installed in your computer. Extract the contents of the file SWMC.rar 1. To test voice recognition, execute the program SpeechTest\SpeechTest.exe and, with a microphone connected to your computer, say test. The program will say Recognition OK, once using a male voice, and then with a female voice. Case this does not happen, you ll have problems to run the game. The source-code is available through the file SpaceWarsMissionCommando.sln. To run the game, you should launch its executable file, which is located in SpaceWarsMissionCommando\bin\x86\Release\SpacewarsMissionCommando.exe. In order to enjoy the best playing experience, the following devices are needed: Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller for Windows. This controller has a USB interface and must be connected to the computer before the game is run. Microphone (a headset, which integrates microphone and ear phones, is suggested, in order to free your hands to the usage of the gamepad). Finally, the preferred game screen resolution is 1280 x 720 pixels. Different resolutions may not be able show the game in full screen mode. 1 Formerly available at http://www.cin.ufpe.br/~awbf/temp/xna Space War Mission Commando 4 of 12
3 Game Dynamics The possible actions that can be fired in Space War Mission Commando are presented below: As it can be noticed, there are two main differences in comparison to the original Space War. First of all, the right shoulder button (also known as RB ) is used to enable the communication radio between you and your squad. The communication radio keeps enabled while the button is being pressed. If the radio is off, your orders will be ignored by the squad. Keyboard H key is equivalent to this button. When the communication is open, you will notice an image in the top-right corner of the screen, as shown below: With the communication radio enabled, you can order the following voice commands: Space War Mission Commando 5 of 12
Alpha! : asks the Alpha squad pilot to listen to your subsequent commands. If this command was heard successfully, Alpha will appear in the bottom-left corner of the screen, saying Yes!. Delta! : asks the Delta squad pilot to listen to your subsequent commands. If this command was heard successfully, Delta will appear in the bottom-right corner of the screen, saying Yes, sir!. Everybody! : asks both pilots to listen to your subsequent commands. This is equivalent to calling each pilot individually. With one or more pilots in alert, the following commands can be ordered: Go, go! : makes the pilot to stop being alert to subsequent commands. Fire! : orders the pilot to launch its weapon. Alpha uses missiles (and says Fox one! when launching them) while Delta uses a double machinegun (and says Bang! when using it). Free! : asks pilots to act by their own, according to their artificial intelligence. To stop this action, it is necessary to call them again ( Alpha!, Beta! or Everybody! ). Space War Mission Commando 6 of 12
Spin! : asks the pilot to turn to north, south, east or west. To chose the direction, use the D-pad after the command was acknowledged (as indicated in the picture below) 2 : Move! : asks the pilot to move to one of the four mission checkpoints (red, green, blue or yellow). To choose the destiny checkpoint, use the D-pad after the command was acknowledged (as indicated in the picture below) 3 : 2 It is possible to simulate the D-pad keys in this case by using the numeric area of the keyboard (NumLock indicator must be on). North, South, West and East correspond, respectively, to the keys Num8, Num2, Num4 and Num6. 3 Red, Yellow, Green and Blue correspond, respectively, to the keys Num8, Num2, Num4 and Num6 (NumLock indicator must be on). Space War Mission Commando 7 of 12
4 Missions 4.1 Mission 1: Squad Training In this mission, all of the asteroids of the scenario must be destroyed by Alpha and Delta, through voice commands. Your own spaceship will not be able to fire. 4.2 Mission 2: Ability Test In this mission, you should drive your ship to the exit flag, avoiding asteroids on your way and asking Alpha and Delta do move. Squad pilots cannot be destroyed by friendly fire. Space War Mission Commando 8 of 12
4.3 Mission 3: Astronaut Rescue This mission will require from you skills exercised in the previous missions. The main goal now is to save an astronaut, who is lost in space, moving your ship to him until he runs out of oxygen (there are only 3 minutes left). However, be careful: if a moving asteroid hits the small asteroids belt, a big chain explosion will happen and the mission will fail. Ask Alpha and Delta to destroy such moving asteroids. Space War Mission Commando 9 of 12
5 Known Issues Sounds from the outside environment or the game itself can interfere in voice commands. For example, some things said by Alpha can be listened and interpreted as voice commands by Delta. In order to soften such a problem, use ear phones and enable the communication radio (right shoulder or H keyboard key) only when necessary. Some small moving asteroids in Mission 2 can be stuck to other asteroids after a collision. Eventually the get free later on, so you should ignore this fact. Screen resolutions different from 1280 x 720 pixels may not be able to show the game in full screen mode. It is possible to move back to the main screen by pressing the start button anywhere in the game. However, avoid doing this while the squad pilots are in free mode, because they may not be able to answer to fire commands later. Space War Mission Commando 10 of 12
6 Final Remarks By providing a new interaction model and inserting strategy to the Space War game, the Mission Commando extension improves the player experience and open new alternatives to enhance the game replay value. It is important to notice that the missions, characters and actions presented in this first version do not exhaust the extension possibilities. Its potential is as vast, or limited, as the creativity of game developers and designers. Space War Mission Commando 11 of 12
7 Links DreamBuildPlay contest: http://www.dreambuildplay.com/; Microsoft XNA: http://msdn.microsoft.com/xna. Space War Mission Commando 12 of 12