DOCSLIB.ORG

Earthbound Hacking 101

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Earthbound Hacking 101 EarthBound Hacking 101 First Edition Table of Contents Introduction I. CoilSnake Chapter 1. Getting Started Chapter 2. Your First Hack Chapter 3. NPCs Chapter 4. Playable Characters Chapter 5. PSI Abilities Chapter 6. Battle – Actions Chapter 7. Battle – nemies Chapter 8. Battle – Backgrounds Chapter 9. Items Chapter 10. Stores Chapter 11. "he #ser Interface Chapter 12. %usic Chapter 13. %iscellaneous II. CCScri&t III. arthbound %usic ditor I'. PSI Animation ditor '. arthbound Save State ditor Introduction Greetings) and congratulations on your ac*uisition o$ this document+ By doing so) you have not only ensured the renewal o$ ho&e $or all o$ humanity, you have also saved an average o$ nine &u&&ies $ro! a horrible demise+ -n a related note) you have also taken the $irst ste& towards learning ho, to hack arthBound. "his guide will ho&e$ully instruct you in all the basic techni*ues re*uired to get you u& and hacking one o$ the greatest games in modern history. Beyond reasonable co!&uter skills and a willingness to learn) there are no real &rere*uisites) so let.s /u!& right in+ ow can "arth#ound be hacked? It’s on a console' arthBound) like any other console game) can have its data e0tracted and mani&ulated on a co!&uter with s&ecial tools that are able to grab its 1-% 21ead3-nly %emory) $ro! its cartridge) where all the game.s &rogramming and art is located. "he 1-% can then be &assed through something called an emulator, which atte!&ts to recreate an SN S environment so that you can &lay arthBound on a &ersonal co!&uter. "he o,nershi& o$ a 1-% is legally-dubious at best) and distributing a 1-% can $re*uently lead to legal action $ro! the creators o$ the game. Since STA1% N.N " would rather avoid a lawsuit i$ &ossible) it does not distribute the arthBound 1-%) so you.re on your o,n to $ind one 2and in any case) a *uick Google search should be enough to $ind one within a minute4. -nce you have your 1-%) you.ll need to get an emulator. 5SN S is highly recommended) as it is cross3&lat$orm) &ossesses a &lethora o$ $eatures) and is easy to use. Just o&en your 1-% with 5SN S and voilà – you can no, &lay arthBound on your co!&uter. No, that you have the game data on your co!&uter, you can start modi$ying the game. "o do so) you can either manually tweak the he0adecimal values 2an e0&lanation is beyond the sco&e A screenshot of 5SN S8 !enu screen. o$ this manual, but there are many use$ul resources on the Internet4 contained within the 1-% 2,hich is use$ul i$ your ob/ective is to discover new $eatures4) or you can use some o$ the many tools that have been written over the years to automate the &rocess considerably 2&articularly use$ul i$ you.re less o$ a technical &erson and more o$ an artist-type4. "his manual will $ocus on some o$ these tools 2kee& reading...4. (ell) oka*) so !hat about +other% ,nd +other 3% For varying reasons) less e$$orts have been invested into hacking the games that &receded and $ollowed arthBound) namely %other/ arthBound : and %other ;. In the case o$ the $ormer, this is mostly because it is much less interesting to work with the original %other engine than with the arthBound engine) since the latter o$$ers a greater degree o$ customi<ation. In the case o$ %other ;) the architecture o$ its 1-% !akes it di$$icult to hack) so $e, e$$orts have been e0&anded toward doing so. "here are a $e, tools) however; check the! out at STA1% N.N ".s PK Hack section) under ? diting "ools $or %other @ and %other ;A. "hese tools will not be covered in this manual. ow is this -anual or.ani/ed? "his document has been s&lit into se(eral &arts) each dealing with a s&eci$ic tool used to hack arthBound. "hese are the tools which will be covered) in order: • CoilSnake 1 CoilSnake is a re&lacement $or PK Hack 2the original hacking so$tware) also known as JHack4) whose &ro&ensity towards 1-% corru&tion was a severe limitation $or hacking. Chereas PK Hack edited the 1-% directly with custo! editors) CoilSnake e0tracts the re*uired data so that it can be edited with e0ternal &rograms. It can be used in con/unction with CCScri&t 2see belo,4. CoilSnake has both a CLI 2Command3Dine Interface4 and a GUI 2Graphical #ser Interface) ,ritten in "kinter)= this manual will cover both $or each techni*ue where &ossible. However, i$ you.re /ust starting out) you might be more co!$ortable using the GUI. • CCScript 1 the ultimate dialogue editor) CCScri&t is used to edit characters. and ob/ects. dialogue with the &layer throughout arthBound. It &ossesses a si!&le) human3readable and easy-to-use syntax $or creating co!&le0 dialogs) with much more than /ust te0t. CoilSnake is able to bind these dialogues to the e0&orted 1-% automatically. Chile CCScri&t $iles can be created using 'isual CCScri&t) this is not recommended as CoilSnake can handle CCScri&t co!&ilation itsel$) when tied to an ap&ro&riate CCScri&t co!&iler. • "bPro3"dit 1 the best map editor beginning with b and ending with dit) use bPro/ dit to graphically edit arthBound map $iles generated with CoilSnake. • "arth#ound +usic "ditor 1 not only does this tool allo, you to edit music) it also allows you to &lay back songs! 1ecommended $or musicians bound to arth. • 2SI ,ni-ation "ditor 1 a really use$ul tool i$ you.re looking $or a ,ay to animate ne, PSI e$$ects in arthBound. • "arth#ound 0a4e 0tate "ditor 1 a use$ul tool when debugging to *uickly ski& ahead) this tool allows you to /u!& to another &oint in the game by modi$ying your save data. (hat do I need to start hackin.% -&erating syste!B CoilSnake and CCScri&t are cross3&lat$orm &rograms) and will work on Cindows) %ax and Dinu0. B Hack and bPro/ dit will run on any syste! with Java installed. "he arthbound %usic ditor, PSI Animation ditor and arthBound Save State ditor are Cindows-only &rograms) but using the %ono library on Cine) they could &otentially be made to run on Dinu0 and %ac. "e0t editorB A&art $ro! an ap&ro&riate o&erating syste!) you.ll need various standard utilities to edit game $ilesB a te0t editor to edit .yml $iles) such as NotePadEE 2Cindows4) "e0t%ate 2%ac)) or Gedit 2Dinu04. A word &rocessor 2such as %icroso$t Cord4 is unlikely to work. Image editorB Photosho& is the industry standard $or image editing) and with good reason) but remains an e0tremely e0&ensive &rogram. I$ you can.t af$ord it) there are many other &rograms available) such as GraphicsGale 2$ree4. Carning: while GI%P is an e0tremely &o&ular o&en-source alternative to Photosho&) there is currently a bug in recent versions when saving inde0ed PNGs= it is there$ore not recommended to use GI%P. Fe&endenciesB Individual &rograms might have third3&arty de&endencies) or might even de&end u&on each other to work. ach tool’s documentation will outline what is needed. -ne human brainB Pre$erably not in a /ar. ow complete is this -anual% Not co!&letely co!&lete. "his First dition deals only with CoilSnake and skims over some &arts) but later editions will try to cover all the other i!&ortant tools) while also &roviding ap&endices o$ re$erence $or control codes) various (alues) and more+ But that is $or another day. I. CoilSnake CoilSnake is &erhaps the single most i!&ortant tool in your hacking arsenal, as it allows you to deco!&ile 1-% $iles to an organi<ed directory which will contain 2almost4 e(erything $ro! the game) including PSI &ower lists) enemy statistics) artwork and more. Its &urpose is to eventually su&ersede PK Hack9JHack through the &rogressive addition o$ new $eatures. "he main advantage o$ CoilSnake over PKHack is that it does not directly modi$y the 1-% $ileB this means that the chance that the 1-% will get corru&ted is a lot less signi$icant. It also gives you more $reedo! over your hacking, letting you choose your own image editors) te0t editors) and so on) while &reserving the human-readable YA%D $ormat $or its te0t data $iles. CoilSnake is written in Python and is there$ore cross3&lat$orm. It re*uires 2*thon 2.7) Python.s 5,+6 extension) and the 2*thon I-a.e 6ibrar* 82I69. I$ you wish to use its Graphical #ser Interface) you.ll also need to have Python.s Tkinter extension. Additionally, i$ you wish to !ake use o$ CCScri&t within your hacking &ro/ects 2which you &robably should i$ you intend to write some dialogue4) you.ll have to obtain a CCScri&t co!&iler binary and s&eci$y its location within CoilSnake.s &re$erences 2see below $or more instructions4. For instructions on co!&iling CCScri&t $or your syste!) see the ap&ro&riate section. Note $or non3Cindows usersB CoilSnake uses a &re-built binary blob $or the NativeComp Python module= however, this binary will not work on other systems) so you.ll have to co!&ile your own. ScaredG Fon.t be+ build_NativeComp.py is a user-friendly Python scri&t that will build the module $or you.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • In This Day of 3D Graphics, What Lets a Game Like ADOM Not Only Survive
    Ross Hensley STS 145 Case Study 3-18-02 Ancient Domains of Mystery and Rougelike Games The epic quest begins in the city of Terinyo. A Quake 3 deathmatch might begin with a player materializing in a complex, graphically intense 3D environment, grabbing a few powerups and weapons, and fragging another player with a shotgun. Instantly blown up by a rocket launcher, he quickly respawns. Elapsed time: 30 seconds. By contrast, a player’s first foray into the ASCII-illustrated world of Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM) would last a bit longer—but probably not by very much. After a complex process of character creation, the intrepid adventurer hesitantly ventures into a dark cave—only to walk into a fireball trap, killing her. But a perished ADOM character, represented by an “@” symbol, does not fare as well as one in Quake: Once killed, past saved games are erased. Instead, she joins what is no doubt a rapidly growing graveyard of failed characters. In a day when most games feature high-quality 3D graphics, intricate storylines, or both, how do games like ADOM not only survive but thrive, supporting a large and active community of fans? How can a game design seemingly premised on frustrating players through continual failure prove so successful—and so addictive? 2 The Development of the Roguelike Sub-Genre ADOM is a recent—and especially popular—example of a sub-genre of Role Playing Games (RPGs). Games of this sort are typically called “Roguelike,” after the founding game of the sub-genre, Rogue. Inspired by text adventure games like Adventure, two students at UC Santa Cruz, Michael Toy and Glenn Whichman, decided to create a graphical dungeon-delving adventure, using ASCII characters to illustrate the dungeon environments.
    [Show full text]
  • Ogre Battle Review
    Eric Liao STS 145 February 2 1,2001 Ogre Battle Review This review is of the cult Super Nintendo hit Ogre Battle. In my eyes, it achieved cult hit status because of its appeal to hard-core garners as well as its limited release (only 25,000 US copies!), despite being extraordinarily successful in Japan. Its innovative gameplay has not been emulated by any other games to date (besides sequels). As a monument to Ogre Battle’s amazing replayability, I still play the game today on an SNES emulator. General information: Full name: Ogre Battle Saga, Episode 5: The March of the Black Queen Publisher: Atlus Developer: Quest Copyright Date: 1993 Genre: real time strategy with RPG elements Platform: Originally released for SNES, ported to Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation, with sequels for SNES, N64, NeoGeo Pocket Color, Sony Playstation # Players: 1 player game Storyline: This game hasa tremendously deep storyline for a console game, rivaling most RPGs. When I say deep, it is not in the traditional interactive fiction sense. There are no cutscenes in the game, and characters do not talk to each other. Rather, what makes the game deep is not the plot, but the completely branching structure of the plot. The story itself is not extremely original: The gametakes place thousands of years after a huge battle, called “The Ogre Battle,” was fought. This war was between mankind and demonkind, with the winner to rule the world. Mankind won and sealed the demons in the underworld. However, an evil wizard created an artifact called “The Black Diamond” that could destroy this seal.
    [Show full text]
  • Game Review | the Legend of Zelda file:///Users/Denadebry/Desktop/Hpsresearch/Papersfromgreen
    Game Review | The Legend of Zelda file:///Users/denadebry/Desktop/HPSresearch/PapersFromGreen... Matt Waddell STS 145: Game Review Table of Contents: Da Game Story Line & Game-play Technical Stuff Game Design Success Endnotes In 1984 President Hiroshi Yamauchi asked apprentice game designer Sigeru Miyamoto to oversee R&D4, a new research and development team for Nintendo Co., Ltd. Miyamoto's group, Joho Kaihatsu, had one assignment: "to come up with the most imaginative video games ever." 1 On February 21, 1986, Nintendo Co., Ltd. published The Legend of Zelda (hereafter abbreviated LoZ) for the Famicom in Japan. It was Miyamoto's first autonomous attempt at game design. In July 1987, Nintendo of America published LoZ for the Nintendo Entertainment System in the United States, this time with a shiny gold cartridge. Origins: where did LoZ come from? Miyamoto admits that LoZ is partly based on Ridley Scott's movie Legend. Indeed, Miyamoto's video game shares more than just a title with Scott's 1985 production. But Miyamoto's fundamental inspiration for LoZ remains his childhood home, with its maze of rooms, sliding shoji screens, and "hallways, from which there seemed to be a medieval castle's supply of hidden rooms." 2 Story Line: a brief synopsis. In the land of Hyrule, the legend of the "Triforce" was being passed down from generation to generation; golden triangles possessing mystical powers. One day, an evil army attacked Hyrule and stole the Triforce of Power. This army was led by Gannon, the powerful Prince of Darkness. Fearing his wicked rule, Zelda, the princess of Hyrule, split the remaining Triforce of Wisdom into eight fragments and hid them throughout the land.
    [Show full text]
  • Super Mario Brothers
    Super Mario Brothers Complete* Transcription/Arrangements for the Piano By Philip Kim Original Music Composed by Kondo Koji 近藤 浩治 Game Produced by Nintendo * I did not include sound effects not playable by the piano. Forward I want to first of all, thank the people at Nintendo for creating this video game classic which I have fond memories of playing for many hours during my early teen years and way into my 20s. I want to especially thank the composer, Kondo Koji, for composing such memorable tunes which will remain within us to those who have played this wonderful game series. I first heard the piano arrangements of the Super Mario series on the internet played by The Blindfolded Pianist, a.k.a. Martin Leung, about 4‐5 years back and I was thrilled to hear these gems on the piano. As most of the people probably did, I looked for the sheet music but I couldn’t find the complete transcriptions/arrangements for the piano except the ones available done by Martin. It was recently that I watched Martin’s performance video again and it was then when I decided if I couldn’t purchase the scores I’ll do my own transcriptions and arrangements. So it is Mr. Martin Leung that I owe my inspiration to do my own transcriptions of these musical gems. Since I couldn’t find any “Officially” published music scores for these BMG (Background Music) for the Super Mario series, I did my searches on the net and got my hands on many midi files and nsf (Nintendo Sound Format) files to play and to listen in order to notate the music.
    [Show full text]
  • Designing Gameplay Researching and Testing Nintendo’S Game Design
    Designing Gameplay Researching and testing Nintendo’s game design Malin Ribäck Arcada Biblioteket och Språkenheten Helsingfors 2019 EXAMENSARBETE Arcada Utbildningsprogram: Mediekultur Identifikationsnummer: 6847 Författare: Malin Ribäck Arbetets namn: Gameplays design – Undersökning och test av Nintendos speldesign Handledare (Arcada): Mirko Ahonen Uppdragsgivare: Sammandrag: Studien gick ut på att utforska hur spelföretaget Nintendo designar gameplay. För att testa resultaten i praktiken skapades ett game design-dokument. Därför börjar arbetet med att diskutera vad game design-dokument är och vad de används för. Game design-dokumentet som gjordes i samband med studien är en kombination av det huvudsakliga game design- dokumentet och ett konceptdokument. Därför tar arbetet också upp skillnaderna mellan dessa dokument. För att utreda hur Nintendo designar gameplay utfördes en litteraturundersökning. Materialet som användes i litteraturundersökningen består av intervjuer. Majoriteten av intervjuerna härstammar från Nintendos egen hemsida. För att utforma en teori tar arbetet upp några befintliga teorier för hur Nintendo designar sina spel. För att kunna diskutera Nintendos gameplay definieras gameplays koncept genom att diskutera olika definitioner av olika författare som tar upp ämnet i fråga. Litteraturundersökningen inleds med en presentation av varifrån materialet för studien har kommit. Inledningsvis tar också arbetet upp två viktiga spelutvecklare från Nintendo, för att ge insikt i varför just de personerna är viktiga. För att presentera en helhet över hur Nintendo designar gameplay studeras, organiseras, presenteras och diskuteras innehållet från litteraturundersökningen. Resultatet från undersökningen visar bland annat att när Nintendo designar sina spel, fokuserar man på följande saker: Att göra spelen användarvänliga, att formge dem enligt deras funktion, att göra spelvärlden responsiv i förhållande till spelaren och att undvika störa eller avbryta spelarens inlevelse i spelet.
    [Show full text]
  • Soul of Zelda: a Memoir of an Ephemeral Being Mitchell Kopitch A
    Soul of Zelda: A Memoir of an Ephemeral Being Mitchell Kopitch A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts University of Washington 2018 Committee: Ted Hiebert Sarah Dowling Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences ©Copyright 2018 Mitchell Kopitch University of Washington Abstract Soul of Zelda: A Memoir of an Ephemeral Being Mitchell Kopitch Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Ted Hiebert School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Hybrid document of memoir and fiction concerning fantasy, video games, and the ways in which game design nuance can be found in every day life. Particular attention is put on The Legend of Zelda from 1986, the first 3D Zelda installment, Ocarina of Time in 1998, and Dark Souls from 2011. This is a fictional story heavily inspired by those games and many others, but the story and characters are original, including a queer/gender bending protagonist. The story-line is a creative work that emulates the underlining philosophy of fantasy video games such as Zelda and Dark Souls, re-imagining video game design and personal gaming experiences as prose. 1 ~ Soul of Zelda ~ A Memoir of an Ephemeral Muse by Mitchell Kopitch Turn Page1 1 Book Equivalent of “Press Start”. 2 WORLD SELECTION: Poetics Statement Introduction: By the Author World I I-I: Intro Cinematic Interlude #1 - On Psychiatry I-II: Opening Interlude #2 - A Connection I-III: Character Creator Interlude #3 - Consumption World II II-I: Tutorial Interlude #4 - The Universe as Game II-II: Fast Travel Interlude #5 - On Labors of Love II-III: Mod Interlude #6 - Deprived World III III-I: Open World Interlude #7 - Extremity III-II: Dungeon Crawl Interlude #8 - The Male in the Room III-III: Boss Battle Interlude #9 - Of Demons and Memories Additional Content Attunement Exam 3 Poetics Statement When I parted ways with one of my roommates in college, he gave me his copy of Dark Souls (2011) as a parting gift.
    [Show full text]
  • Game Level Generation from Gameplay Videos
    Game Level Generation from Gameplay Videos Matthew Guzdial, Mark Riedl Entertainment Intelligence Lab School of Interactive Computing Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA, USA [email protected], [email protected] Abstract training, and entertainment, as expert design knowledge is required to either guide novices or fully automate design. We present an unsupervised approach to synthesize full video In this paper we present a system that learns a generative, game levels from a set of gameplay videos. Our primary con- probabilistic model from gameplay video exemplars in an tribution is an unsupervised process to generate levels from a model trained on gameplay video. The model represents unsupervised fashion. At a high level the system parses raw probabilistic relationships between shapes properties, and re- gameplay video as input, categorizes level sections based on lates the relationships to stylistic variance within a domain. their contents and the player’s behavior, and learns a prob- We utilize the classic platformer game Super Mario Bros. due abilistic graphical model of spatial relationships of content. to its highly-regarded level design. We evaluate the output in This model captures the probabilistic structure of level com- comparison to other data-driven level generation techniques ponents, which can then be used in the generation of novel via a user study and demonstrate its ability to produce novel content that stylistically matches the original exemplars. output more stylistically similar to exemplar input. Our contributions include: (1) a method to automatically categorize level data; (2) and a probabilistic model for full Introduction level generation. We evaluate our approach by comparing generated levels to those of two other data-driven Super Procedural level generation is the problem of generating Mario Bros.
    [Show full text]
  • How Players Decode Minecraft
    Loading… The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association Vol 10(16): 75-86 http://loading.gamestudies.ca Procedural Elaboration: How Players Decode Minecraft Nic Watson Concordia University [email protected] Abstract Minecraft play practices reveal a type of analytic play in which significant work is invested in discovering esoteric details about the game, without necessarily providing practical prescriptions for optimizing play. This paper proposes the term “procedural elaboration” to describe such activities and the knowledge thereby produced. In contrast to the existing concept of theorycrafting, the products of procedural elaboration are primarily descriptive rather than prescriptive. However, this knowledge is far from trivial or banal. I argue that these knowledge- making activities can be explained through two functions of procedural elaboration. First, it provides players with a tool for dealing with the threatening inscrutability of some procedural game systems. Second, it acts as a ritual form of communication that helps to solidify a coherent Minecraft player community, while also establishing a social order within that community. Subsequently, I consider why players persist in using specifically experimental methods in procedural elaboration, even though the online availability of decompiled Minecraft source code means that the rules are not fully hidden as they are in most other games. I argue that the experimental method persists for these reasons: because it does not require specialized programming skills; because the gameplay already casts scientific experimentation as play; and because the iterative nature of Minecraft’s development has produced source code that is structured in a way that resists direct deciphering. Author Keywords Minecraft; procedural elaboration; procedural literacy; procedural hostility; experimental play; tactics; ritual communication; cultural capital; gamer capital Introduction: Procedural Elaboration and its Functions MrSideliner is a video game record-setter.
    [Show full text]
  • Analysis and Development of a Game of the Genre Roguelike
    UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL INSTITUTO DE INFORMÁTICA CURSO DE CIÊNCIA DA COMPUTAÇÃO CIRO GONÇALVES PLÁ DA SILVA Analysis and Development of a Game of the Roguelike Genre Final Report presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Computer Science. Advisor: Prof. Dr. Raul Fernando Weber Porto Alegre 2015 UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL Reitor: Prof. Carlos Alexandre Netto Vice-Reitor: Prof. Rui Vicente Oppermann Pró-Reitor de Graduação: Prof. Sérgio Roberto Kieling Franco Diretor do Instituto de Informática: Prof. Luís da Cunha Lamb Coordenador do Curso de Ciência da Computação: Prof. Raul Fernando Weber Bibliotecária-Chefe do Instituto de Informática: Beatriz Regina Bastos Haro ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to thank my advisor Raul Fernando Weber for his support and crucial pieces of advisement. Also, I'm grateful for the words of encouragement by my friends, usually in the form of jokes about my seemingly endless graduation process. I'm also thankful for my brother Michel and my sister Ana, which, despite not being physically present all the time, were sources of inspiration and examples of hard work. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank my parents, Isabel and Roberto, for their unending support. Without their constant encouragement and guidance, this work wouldn't have been remotely possible. ABSTRACT Games are primarily a source of entertainment, but also a substrate for developing, testing and proving theories. When video games started to popularize, more ambitious projects demanded and pushed forward the development of sophisticated algorithmic techniques to handle real-time graphics, persistent large-scale virtual worlds and intelligent non-player characters.
    [Show full text]
  • FULLTEXT01.Pdf
    Abstract Procedural Content Generation means the algorithmic creation of game content with limited or indirect user input. This technique is currently widespread in the game industry. However, its effects when applied to elements that do not engage directly with the player, also known as Game Bits, require more research. This paper focuses on how players experience a game when these Game Bits are procedurally generated, and how this alters their will to continue playing the game. By developing and using a 2D Roguelike game to perform a qualitative study with eight participants, this dissertation shows an indication that procedurally generating Game Bits does not alter how the players experience a game or their desire to replay it. Keywords: Procedural content generation, PCG, Game Bits, Game User Experience, Roguelike. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Background 2 2.1 Procedural Content Generation 2 2.2 PCG Methods 3 2.3 Layers of Game Content 4 2.4 PCG in games 5 2.5 Roguelikes 6 2.6 User Experience (UX) and Game User Experience 7 2.7 Color and emotion 10 2.8 Related studies 10 3. Problem 12 3.1 Method 13 3.2 Ethical considerations 15 4. The game prototype 16 4.1 Core mechanics and User Interface 16 4.2 Environment 18 4.3 Enemies 19 4.4 Environmental objects 22 5. Results and analysis 23 5.1 Participants and their background 23 5.2 General impression of the game 24 5.3 Enjoyment 25 5.4 Frustration 27 5.5 Replayability 28 5.6 Environment and aesthetic value 30 5.7 Analysis 32 6.
    [Show full text]
  • Patterns, Dungeons and Generators
    Patterns, Dungeons and Generators Steve Dahlskog Staffan Björk Julian Togelius Malmö University Göteborg University New York University Faculty of Technology and Department of Applied Department of Computer Society Information Technology Science and Engineering Malmö, Sweden Göteborg, Sweden New York, NY, U.S.A [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT This paper addresses the domain of dungeons, the type of This paper analyses dungeons, of the varieties commonly levels with a spatial puzzle quality first introduced in Dun- found in role-playing games, into several sets of design pat- geons & Dragons [31] and typically found in \roguelikes" terns at different levels of abstraction. The analysis fo- such as Rogue [59], Moria [40], and Hack [24], and com- cuses on mechanical patterns that could be either straight- puter role-playing games (RPGs) such as Bard's Tale [37] forwardly instantiated or recognized by a well-defined pro- and Ultima [28]. We identify a relatively large set of de- cess. At the most concrete level a set of fundamental com- sign patterns at different sizes and levels of abstraction { ponents were identified, followed by a long list of micro- micro-, meso- and macro-patterns. The motivation for car- patterns which can be directly instantiated. Shorter lists rying out this analysis is to find patterns that can be used of meso- and macro-patterns, which can be identified me- for pattern-based or search-based dungeon generation and chanically, are also identified. The direct motivation for for this reason the granularity is finer and the level of de- this analysis is to find building blocks and objectives for tail of the pattern collection is higher than what is typical a search-based procedural dungeon generator, however we for pattern collections.
    [Show full text]
  • Limitations in Early Video Game Music and Their Aesthetic Impact Think
    Limitations in Early Video Game Music and Their Aesthetic Impact View the audio examples given throughout this paper in this accompanying Youtube Playlist: https://bit.ly/2IzqdmX ​ Think back to the first time you picked up a video game controller. You may remember the graphics or art style of that game, a favorite character, or that one level that you were stuck on for hours on end. Along with these memories, it’s quite likely that you thought of the infectious melodies that accompanied your virtual adventures. Undoubtedly, video game music is one of the most memorable and essential parts of this medium that we hold so dear. It is important to note, however, that many of these soundtracks which we recall so fondly were made in the presence of technological challenges. The composers of video game music for the home consoles of the late 1980s and 90s overcame the limitations of these early systems by viewing what on the surface appeared to be constraints as challenges that would guide and enhance their creativity rather than control and restrict it. The choices made to combat or circumvent these technological limitations took place primarily in the areas of organization and timbre. It is in these areas that the limitations faced by early video game music composers have had a lasting influence on the aesthetic choices of contemporary video game composers, and as a result — the modern landscape of video game music. Before we can properly identify how technological limitations have influenced the development of video game music, it is necessary to establish the context in which these limitations were faced.
    [Show full text]