Development Plan

From EQUIS Lab Wiki

Life is a Village will be developed via a succession of versions, each of which adds incrementally to the game's functionality.

Contents 1 Version 0.1 2 Version 0.2 3 Version 0.3 4 Version 0.4

Version 0.1

Completion goal: Wed June 8, 2005

The goals of this prototype are to put together the main elements of our technology and to give us a running program that we can use to begin informal usability testing.

The features are:

• Simple terrain based on PLSM2
• Stock avatar (e.g., Ogre robot)
• Over-the-shoulder camera following avatar, user can control view angle
• Log cabin entity in terrain
  • When avatar moves close to cabin door, door opens; when avatar moves away from door, door closes again
• The avatar is controlled by:
  • Pedalling moves forward
  • PS2 controller joystick turns right/left
  • One PS2 button applies brakes
  • Two PS2 buttons used to gear-up/gear-down
• Terrain affects the difficulty of pedalling
  • Going up hill increases difficulty of pedalling; going down hill decreases difficulty of pedalling
  • Relation between grade and difficulty is non-linear

Version 0.2

Completion goal: July 20, 2005

This version adds the ability to harvest wood. (Other resources will be added in later releases.)

• HUD shows player's status
  • How many villagers available for placement
  • How much of each resource type gathered so far
  • Time played
  • Distance covered
  • Calories burned (if available)
• Resource markers show where wood can be gathered
• Wood resource markers are located in forests
  • Tree entities are used to make forests
• When the player rides through a resource marker, if s/he has a villager available, the villager is dropped off and starts chopping wood
• When the villager fills his/her bag, s/he walks to the village, drops off the wood, then returns to the resource marker and continues chopping
  • The wood drop-off increases the player's wood supply, as reflected in the HUD
• The player's avatar is now a human with appropriate animations
  • Idle animation plays when the player is stationary
  • Walk animation plays when the player is moving slowly
  • Run animation plays when the player is moving quickly
• The villager avatar uses these animations:
  • Chop for chopping wood
  • Walk to move between the village and the resource marker
  • Drop for dropping the wood
• If further buildings have been developed, they will be placed statically in the landscape to add interest

Version 0.3

Completion goal: August 5, 2005

This version adds other resource types, linkage of maximum number of villagers to structures, linkage of structures that can be built to the resources that have been collected.

• Two resources are wood and ore
• Simple sound:
  • Ambient sound (based on type of terrain - forest, hills, mountain, etc.)
  • Sounds to accompany basic actions - walking, chopping, etc.
• Ongoing improvements to terrain.

Version 0.4

Completion goal: TBA

• 3d collision detection