Celu Holocaust

Game: Celu Holocaust

by Celambarasan Ramasamy

This game is a tile-based four way isometric scroller. The game was developed in c++ using DirectX. This game is one of my personal programming projects and was a great learning experience. Please note that I have used DirectX 9.0c to compile this project, so this game will run only on Directx 9.0c or newer versions. The game is available for download at the bottom of this page.

The game features:

A Tile based map controlled by a customizable mapping matrix
A user controllable camera
Game objects that dynamically reorient themselves parallel to the plane of the camera (helps create the illusion of 3D using isometric sprites).
Non-player characters that are initialized to spawn at random points on the map.
Collision Detection against non-axis aligned quadrilaterals
Patrolling and Chasing AI algorithms.

Tile Based Map

The game map is implemented as a series of rectangular tiles that can be modified by manipulating a mapping matrix. The input for the mapping matrix is read from a text file. Editing the text file helps to alter the game map, Sort of like the poor man’s equivalent of a game world editor ; )

P.S: The limited availability of artwork has severely restricted me in the artistic aspects of my game. As a result I have included only two types of tiles (0-grass tile, 1-sand tile). Open the ‘tmm.txt’ file inside the game folder and try playing with the values in the file. Setting 0 or 1 at a particular location in the 'tmm.txt' will result in a grass or sand tile at the corresponding location on the game map.

User controllable camera

The game features a fully adjustable camera. Separate controls are available for adjusting both the position and height of the camera.

Isometric View

In order to achieve the isometric view, the world itself is rotated in 3D space, and the sprite objects on the map are realigned to be always parallel to the plane of the camera, irrespective of the camera’s position and orientation. I have used isometric sprites for the game objects. So the camera aligned game sprites, together with the rotated world map, helps to create an Isometric view and the illusion of 3D objects.

Chasing and Patrolling AI routines

The game also features basic patrolling and chasing AI subroutines for non player characters. One of the limitations that had to be overcome while implementing these routines was that the chasing and patrolling movements had to be restricted to one of the 8 possible directions for which the sprite animation was available. The final direction of motion had to be approximated to one of the 8 possible directions that had the best fit.

Collision Detection against Non-axis aligned quadrilateral

In order to facilitate the isometric view, the map had to be rotated in 3D space and aligned to the camera at approximately 45 degrees along the forward direction. So the map was now basically a diamond shaped object in view space. I have implemented a collision detection routine for checking object collision with the boundaries of such non-axis aligned quadrilaterals like the rotated map.

ok..now that the hard part is over. Heres a short note on the fun part : )

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Objective of the Game: KILL ALL THE MUSHROOMS!! (if u want to know 'why?'...well...assume they are going to take over the world!!)

And You are : Santa Claus (yes, you are!!! and you get to fire cruise missiles at the stupid mushrooms : ) )

Villains: As you must have guessed....Mushrooms are the villains ( 'why?'...because I think they are stupid and I don't like them!)

Some aspects of the game play worth noting:

Each time you start the game the mushrooms spawn at different random points on the map (my limited attempt to improve the game replayability!)
As soon as the game starts the mushrooms start to patrol the map. And when you go near them or hit one of them with a missile, they begin to chase you. (talk about provoking a fight!!)
Most of the mushrooms should dies in 3 missile hits, but, as I have added some random offsets to their health some of them might need 4 or 5 hits
With each missile hit the mushroom speed doubles!! (But hey..you got cruise missiles!! and they got what?!!...fungus all over their body?!...cream them!!)
if the mushrooms manage to attack you three times you die! (Lets face it...you got cruise missiles and a bunch of mushrooms manage to attack you three times....you deserve to die!!)

PS: you can try increasing the camera height to view a large area of the map and then pick your targets one by one...try playing around with the mushrooms before you kill them!!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE GAME ( 7 mb )

Remember: the game requires DirectX 9.0c or above and runs on Windows.

To download the latest version of DirectX, click here.

If you have any comments or suggestions on improving the game..I'm all ears...you can mail them to me @ celu_jn31 AT yahoo DOT com or you can leave them in my guest book. And thx for your interest in my game.