The Arcade Game Engine
C Sc 335 (OO Design and Programming) Final Project Fall 2010 Final Project: Virtual Arcade Cabinet Written By: Jude Nelson Run By: Eric Stewart Overview Back in the 1980s, video arcade games were in their prime. Local restaurants, pubs, and arcades lured customers with all of the latest titles: Pacman, BattleZone, Galaxian, Donkey Kong, Tempest, Gee Bee, Dragon's Lair, Dig Dug, Tron, Asteroids, Centipede, Defender, and more. (Un)fortunately, the rise of home videogame systems and home computers relegated these gems to the back storage rooms of many establishments. They are not forgotten, however--even today, arcade cabinets are collected by enthusiasts and arcade ROM emulation systems such as MAME allow my generation to experience these relics first-hand on modern hardware. In this semester project, you will be creating a re-usable and modular game engine in Java that will allow enthusiasts to quickly implement and bring back to life the videogames of lore within the comfort of our own homes. The focus of this project is not on the games themselves, but on the engine that will allow us to emulate these games. Game Engine Intro From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_engine): "A game engine is a software system designed for the creation and development of computer and video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and desktop operating systems such as Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. The core functionality typically provided by a game engine includes a rendering engine (“renderer”) for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, and a scene graph.
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