COMP222 - 2022 - First CA Assignment
Individual coursework
Asteroids-like Game
Assessment Information
Assignment Number 1 (of 2)
Weighting 12%
Assignment Circulated Friday 4 February 2022
Deadline Monday 28 March 2022, 17:00
Submission Mode Electronic
Learning outcome assessed 2. An appreciation of the fundamental concepts associated
with game development: game physics, game arti-
ficial intelligence, content generation;
3. The ability to implement a simple game using an
existing game engine
Purpose of assessment To implement a simple 3D game using a game engine
library
Marking criteria The marking scheme can be found in Section 3
Submission necessary in order No
to satisfy Module requirements?
Late Submission Penalty Standard UoL Policy
I enforce a “no error policy” in this module: If your code does not compile,
your mark will be capped at 40%. Thus, you may get a higher mark for an
incomplete solution than for an advanced sketch.
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Figure 1: Before shooting asteroid Figure 2: After shooting asteroid
1 Objectives
This assignment requires you to implement a simple 3D game using the jMonkeyEngine
library. Optionally, you can use Unity 3D or Unreal Engine.
2 Basic Game Description
The objective of this assignment is to implement a game inspired by the classic arcade game
“Asteroids”, see, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroids_(video_game)
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYSupJ5r2zo.
The game is played on a rectangular “field” bounded by walls from above, below, left and
right (the original game has no walls, but your game has). The game objects (“asteroids”)
are positioned inside the field and can “float” in a linear movement (by translation). When
an asteroid collides with a wall or another asteroid, it “bounces” (changes direction according
to Newton Laws without gravity). A player controls a spaceship that is able to “fly” inside
the field and to “shoot” bullets. When a bullet strikes an asteroid, the asteroid “breaks”
into a few smaller asteroids (at least 2 ) that float in directions and speeds different than the
direction and speed of the original (broken) asteroid. An asteroid can break into smaller ones
at most 5 times, i.e. when an asteroid of minimum size gets shot by a bullet, the asteroid
disappears (is removed from the field). The player wins when all asteroids are removed from
the field. The player loses when an asteroid collides with the spaceship.
Figure 1 shows an example of the the game’s setup, i.e. within a field bounded by 4 walls,
there exist 3 asteroids (large green balls) “floating” according to the blue vectors (arrows),
as well as 1 spaceship (blue triangle) shooting towards one asteroid (red dashed line). Figure
2 shows the effect of the bullet hitting an asteroid, i.e. it is removed from the game and
replaced by two smaller asteroids (smaller red balls) that float towards different directions
and speeds than the removed greed ball.
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3 Marking Scheme
The assignment is split in a number of steps. Every step gives you some marks. You do
not have to implement them in any particular order. Also, the steps below describe what
is expected from you in a bit more detail. It is up to you if you implement the following
functionalities using your game engine’s internal functions, or if you write your own functions
to do so. Neither choice will be favored with extra points.
Step 1: Modeling the environment (10%)
Model the playing field (4 walls), the asteroids and the spaceship. You can either use a 3D
modeling tool like Blender or use the shapes of the game engine you implement the game
in. You must put at least 3 asteroids on the field, and exactly one spaceship. Make sure
that the playing field is relatively large, i.e. if the size of the field does not facilitate smooth
gameplay, marks will be removed.
Step 2: Keyboard interaction (20%)
In this step you should implement the control of the spaceship from input given by the human
player. Preferably the player should use the keyboard. However, using other input methods,
such as the mouse, is not disallowed. The step is further divided into smaller sub-steps.
Step 2.1: Implementing “fly” (15% / 20%)
In this step you should implement the “flying” of the spaceship. The spaceship has some
initial direction and has its initial speed equal to 0. Assuming you take input from the
keyboard, you assign 4 buttons: button “forwards” increases the speed of the spaceship
along the current direction; button “backwards” decreases the speed of the spaceship along
the current direction; button “rightwards” rotates clockwise the direction of the spaceship
with some fixed angular speed; button “leftwards” rotates counter-clockwise the direction of
the spaceship with some fixed angular speed.
Step 2.2: Implementing “shoot” (5% / 20%)
In this step you should implement the “shooting” of the spaceship. Assuming you take input
from the keyboard, you assign 1 button “shoot” which releases a bullet from the position
of the spaceship and along the current direction of the spaceship. The speed of the bullet
should be relatively fast (at least faster than the spaceship). The amount of bullets is for
you to decide. The interaction of the bullet with the asteroids is described below in Step
3.3.
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Step 3: Physics 30% total
The purpose of this step is to model the physical interaction of the game entities. The step
is further divided into smaller sub-steps.
Step 3.1: Implementing “float” (5% / 30%)
In this step you should implement the “floating” of the asteroids. They move linearly
according to a given initial direction and speed.
Step 3.2: Implementing “bounce” (10% / 30%)
In this step you should implement the “bouncing” of the asteroids. When an asteroid
collides with a wall, it should reflect off the wall. When two (or more) asteroids collide with
each other, they should reflect off each other. The bouncing should follow Newton’s Laws
and should not take gravity into account, because supposedly the game takes place in outer
space. When an asteroid collides with the spaceship, the player loses.
Step 3.3: Implementing “break” (15% / 30%)
In this step you should implement the “breaking” of the asteroids. An asteroid “breaks” into
smaller ones after it has collided with a bullet. “Breaking” means that the original asteroid
is removed from the game and is replaced by 2 (or more) smaller asteroids. The direction and
speed of the smaller asteroids should be different than that of the removed asteroid. (I don’t
pose any other restriction, it’s up to you how the smaller asteroids behave.) Also, breaking
of an asteroid should be done at most 5 times, otherwise the game will never end. I.e. when
an asteroid of minimum size breaks, it is removed and not replaced by any asteroid(s).
Step 4: Gameplay (20%)
Add a visible points count and some kind of game levels. The point system is up to you to
define, for example every hit of a bullet with some asteroid gives 1 point, or you can have as
points the percentage of bullets used to bullets that have hit asteroids. To get full marks for
this steps, you should have at least 2 levels and it should be clear when the player progresses
to the higher level. Moreover, it is important that the levels have increasing difficulty. How
this is achieved is again up to you, e.g. higher levels can have more asteroids, or faster
asteroids, or break into more asteroids, or can break more times, or combinations of these
options.
Step 5: Creativity (20%)
You can see that the marks for the steps described above add up to 80%. In order to
get 20% extra you need to be creative and implement some nice features. Below are some
ideas: use textures, sound effects, lighting, power-up packs (making the spaceship immune
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to impact with asteroids, or even able to function as a bullet itself), implement some system
on acquiring bullets, etc. Also, the above specifications do not define what happens if the
spaceship or a bullet hits the wall. Typically, they should simply stop at the point of collision.
However, you can be more creative here, and implement a weird bounce, or that they can
exit the field from the point of collision and re-enter from the opposite side (like the original
game).
4 Deadlines and How to Submit
Deadline for submitting the first assignment is Monday 28 March 2022, 17:00
Submission is via Canvas accessible from
https://liverpool.instructure.com/courses/45230/assignments/173633
All submission must contain the source code, the executable, the necessary files for the
runtime execution and a report.
For jMonkeyEngine submissions you are advised to export your project (File →
Export Project → To ZIP) and submit the ZIP file. Please ensure that the files you
submit can be loaded into jMonkeyEngine.
For Unity and Unreal Engine you are advised to build & export your game so that
it runs independently of these platforms; instructions are found online. To submit the
code you have scripted, copy it to a txt file. Please ensure that your submitted game
is playable.
Please submit the report in the form of document (in pdf-format) containing a
check list indicating whether the above marking points have been implemented successfully.
In the extra features part of the checklist, describe the features you have
implemented.