Last edited 10 Dec, 2014 by jtcoutr2@illinois.edu and GF 20nov14
SpaceWars2.0: Famous Arcade Game Reproduction
Abstract
Space Wars was one of the most first and most influential arcade games. Produced by Larry Rosenthal and released by Cinematronics in
1977,
the game entertained the early generation of gamers and was a critical step towards the gaming industry that exists today.
In my project I will
be recreating Space Wars in order to resurrect the historic game and give it the twist of being a three-dimensional
game and played on the web.
The game will also serve as a model of particle motion in a three-dimensional gravitational field since shot
trajectories are influenced by
a gravitational field in the gamespace.
Original Space Wars
Updates
- Nov. 14, 2014.
Up to this point I have spent the majority of my time figuring out how the html canvas works, and how
it can be used for animation and game creation. In my two-dimensional prototype my design fell apart when
it came to the rotation of the ship using the arrow keys. Without getting past this problem it was impossible
to complete the features of the game following ship movement. Rather than spending more time on the two-dimensional
prototype, I have started to work on the three dimensional game which will evolve into my final project. I am starting
using 3d-math library used in the Cube3D example on the repo, since it will allow me to work in three dimensions without
having to go through some of the complex background knowledge to use three.js successfully. My next step is to create an
animated three-dimension prototype that has movement for the player controlled spaceship. Once that is complete the second
ship, the shooting interface, and the gravitational field will be fairly easy to add in.
- Two-Dimensional Prototype .
-
Different Rotating Methods
(testing program)
- Dec.10, 2014.
Over the past week I have been building the three-dimensional game objects (the ships) and working on how math-3d library draws them
to the canvas. Once I got the objects as I desired I began working on the keyboard events that would rotate the player's ship, and after lots
of time trying to debug my method of rotation I found the problem to be the way that math-3d was multiplying the matrices for the rotation. After
this I wrote my own matrix multiplication function and I now have the player ship rotating to the players arrow controls. I also have added the thrust
so the player can move the ship forward in the direction the ship points although I am going to adjust the speed of the ship's thrust as I see how easy it
is to escape enemy fire in the game. In the next two or three days I will be implementing the other aspects of the game such as shooting and the
gravitational field that affects the projectiles in space.
- Three-Dimensional Game .(in progress)
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