3D Game Genres and Styles Game development is a creative enterprise. There are ways to categorize the game genres but I want you to keep in mind that while some games fit each genre like a glove, many others do not. That's the nature of creativity. Developers keep coming up with new ideas; sometimes they are jockeying for an advantage over the competition, sometimes they are just scratching an itch. At other times, calculating marketing departments decide that mixing two popular genres is a sure-fire path to a secure financial future. The first rule of creative design is that there are no rules. Like all rules, of course, there are exceptions. If you are just scratching an itch, then more power to you. If you are looking to make a difference in the gaming world, you should at least understand the arena. Here we're going look at the most common 3D genres around today, and a few that are interesting from an historical perspective. When you are trying to decide what sort of game you want to create, you should try understanding the genres and using them as guides to help focus your ideas. It's also important to note that all of the screenshots in this chapter are of games by Indie Game developers. Some of them are currently shipping retail games and some are still in development. Almost all of them use the same Torque Game Engine we will use in this book to develop our own game. By no means is this a definitive list; there are many genres that don't exist in the 3D gaming realm, and the number of ways of combining elements of genres is just too large to bother trying to enumerate. If you take pride in your creativity, you might resist attempts to pigeonhole your game idea into one of these genres, and I wouldn't blame you. However when trying to communicate your ideas to others, you will find it very useful to use the genres as shorthand for various collections of features, style and game play. [3]Action Figure 1.1 ThinkTanks - a 3rd Person Point-of-view Action Game made by BraveTree Productions using Torque. Action games come in several forms. The most popular are the First Person Point-Of-View (1st PPOV), where your player character is armed, as are your opponents. The game play is executed through the eyes of your character. These sorts of games are usually called First Person Shooters (FPS). Game play variations include Death Match; Capture the Flag; Attack & Defend; King-of-the-Hill. Action games often have multiplayer online play where your opponents are enemies controlled by real people instead of just computer-controlled opponents. Success in FPS games requires quick reflexes, good eye-hand coordination, and an intimate knowledge of the capabilities of your in-game weapons. Online FPS games are so popular that some games have no single-player game modes. Some Action games are strictly 3rd PPOV, where you view your player-character, or avatar while also viewing the rest of the virtual world your avatar inhabits (Figure 1.1). Half-Life, Rainbow 6 and Delta Force:BlackHawk Down are popular examples of FPS-style Action games. [3]Adventure Adventure games are basically about exploring, go on a quest, find things and solve puzzles. The pioneering Adventure games were text based. You would type in movement commands, and as you entered each new area or room you were given a brief description of where you were. Phrases like "You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike" are now gaming classics. The best Adventure games play like interactive books or stories, where you as the player decide what happens next, to a certain degree. Text adventures evolved into text-based games with static images giving the player a better idea of his surroundings. Eventually these merged with 3D modeling technology. The player was then presented with either a first- or third - person point-of-view of the scene his character was experiencing. Adventure games are heavily story based and typically very linear. You have to find your way from one major accomplishment to the next. As the story develops you soon become more capable of predicting where the game is going. Your success derives from your ability to anticipate and make the best choices. Some well-known examples of Adventure games are The King's Quest series, The Longest Journey, and Syberia. Many elements of Adventure games are now found merged with those of Role Playing Games, and vice versa. Figure 1.2 TubettiWorld - a hybrid Action/Adventure game being developed by Tubetti Enterprises, also using Torque Online adventure games have not really come into their own yet, although some games are emerging that might fit the genre. They tend to include elements of FPS Action games and RPG games to fill out the game play, since the story aspect of the game is more difficult to accomplish in an online environment. Players advance at different speeds, so a monolithic linear storyline would become pretty dreary to more advanced player. An example of an Online Adventure / FPS hybrid is Tubettiworld (Figure 1.2), being developed by my all-volunteer team at Tubetti Enterprises. [3]Role-Playing Figure 1.3 Myrmidon - Science Fiction RPG being developed by 21- 6 Productions, another Torque-based game. Role Playing games are very popular, and that popularity probably find its roots in our early childhood. At younger than six or seven, we often imagined and acted out exciting adventures inspired by our action figures and other toys, or children's books. Like strategy games, the more mature forms of these games first evolved as 'pen-and-paper' games, such as Dungeons & Dragons. These games moved into the computer realm with the computer taking on more of the data-manipulation tasks of the game masters. In role-playing games, the player is usually responsible for the development of his game character's skills, physical appearance, loyalties and other characteristics. Eventually, the game environment moved from each player's imaginations onto the computer, with rich 3-D fantasy worlds populated by visually satisfying representations of buildings, monsters and creatures (Figure 1.3). RPGs are usually science fiction or fantasy based, with some historically oriented games being popular in certain niches. [3]Mazes & Puzzles Figure 1.4 Marble Blast - a Maze and Puzzle hybrid game by GarageGames using their Torque Game Engine. Maze and Puzzle games are somewhat similar to each other. In a Maze game you need to find your way through a 'physical' maze where your routes are defined by walls and other barriers.. Early Maze games were 2D, viewed from the top; more recent ones play more like 3D Adventure or FPS games. Puzzle games are often like Maze games but with problems that need to be solved instead of 'physical' barriers to progress. Mazes also make their appearance in arcade pinball-style games such as Marble Blast (Figure 1.4) by Garage Games. It is a Maze and Puzzle hybrid game where you compete against the clock in an effort to navigate a marble around physical barriers. The puzzle aspect lies in determining the fastest (not necessarily the most direct) route to the finish line. ***Insert Figure 01-05.TIF Chain Reactions - Puzzle Game by Monster Studios, using their Reaction Engine Puzzle games sometimes use puzzles that are variations of the shell game, or more indirect problem solving puzzles where you must cause a series of things to happen in order to trigger some further action that lets you advance. Many puzzle games utilize direct problem solving modes where the puzzle is presented visually. You then need to manipulate on-screen icons or controls in the correct sequences to solve the problem. The best puzzles are those where the solution can be deduced using logic. Puzzles that require pure trial-and-error problem solving techniques tend become tedious rather quickly. An historic example of a puzzle game is The Incredible Machine series by Dynamix. The latest variation of this type is the new game Chain Reactions by Monster Studios (Figure 1.5). [3] Simulators The goal of a Simulator game is to reproduce a real-world situation as accurately as possible. The measure of the accuracy is usually called its fidelity. Most simulators put a heavy emphasis on the fidelity of the visual appearance, sounds and physics of the game. The point is total immersion in the game environment, so that you get the feeling that you are actually there. You may be flying a jet fighter or a thoroughbred Grand Prix racing car. The game mirrors the real life experience to the maximum the developers can manage. Simulators usually require specialized input devices and controllers, such as aircraft joysticks and rudder pedals. Many simulator enthusiasts build complete physical cockpit mockups to enhance the immersion experience. [3]Sports Sport games are a variation of the simulator class of games where the developer's intent is to reproduce the broad experience of the game as accurately as possible. Unlike the action-oriented Flight and Driving Simulators, Sports games usually have a 'Season' or 'Manager' angle where you can also take on the role of coach, owner or team manager. You can execute draft picks and trades or groom new players like any major league ball organization would. In a modern sports simulator you could be managing budgets; you might play or race a regular year's schedule, and different stadiums, arenas, or tracks; you then can play out the part of one or more of the roles of the team. [3]Strategy Strategy games began as 'pen-and-paper' games, like war games, that have been around for centuries. As computer technology evolved, computer-based tables and random-number generators replaced the decision-making aspects of strategy games, traditionally embodied by look-up charts and dice rolls. Eventually the tabletop battlefields (or sand-box battlefields) with their cardboard markers or die-cast military miniatures moved into the computers as well. The early tabletop games were usually turn-based: each player would in turn consider his options and issue his 'orders' to his units, then the dice would be thrown to determine the result of the orders, The players would then modify the battlefield based upon the results. Next, the players would observe the new shape of the battlefield and plot their next moves. The cycle then repeated itself. The advent of computer-based strategy games brought the concept of real-time to the forefront. Now the computer determines the moves and results and structures the battlefield accordingly. It does this on a time-scale that reflects the action. Sometimes the computer will compress the time-scale, and other times the computer will operate in real-time, where one minute of time in the game action takes one minute in the real world.. The player issues orders to his unit as he deems them to be necessary. There are Strategy games that exist outside the world of warfare. Some examples include business strategy games and political strategy games. Some of these games are evolving into Strategic Simulations, like the well-known SimCity series of games. Table 1-1 A list of some popular retail 3D games and their genres. Game Publisher Genre Doom III Activision Action-FPS WarCraft III: Reign Of Chaos Blizzard RTS Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Rockstar Games Action/Sim Star Wars Jedi Knight 3 LucasArts Action-FPS Battlefield 1942 Electronic Arts Action-FPS Homeworld Sierra RTS Everquest Sony RPG Diablo Blizzard RPG Enter The Matrix Infogrames Action-FPS Half Life 2 Sierra Action-FPS Command & Conquer Electronic Arts RTS Unreal Tournament 2003 Infogrames Action-FPS Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield UbiSoft Action-FPS Delta Force: Blackhawk Down Novalogic Action-FPS Civilization III MicroProse Strategy Duke Nukem Forever Gathering of Developers Action-FPS PlanetSide Sony Action-FPS Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell UbiSoft Action-FPS Age of Empires Microsoft Strategy Unreal II The Awakening Infogrames Action-FPS Star Trek Elite Force 2 Activision Action-FPS Return to Castle Wolfenstein Activision Action-FPS Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Electronic Arts Action-FPS WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne Blizzard RTS Dungeon Siege Microsoft Action/RPG Myst III Exile UbiSoft Adventure The Longest Journey Funcom Adventure Syberia Microids Adventure SimCity 4 Electronic Arts Strategy-Sim [2]Game Platforms This book is about computer games written for personal computers. There are three dominant operating systems - Microsoft Windows, Linux, and MacOS. For some of these systems there are quite a few different flavors, but the differences within each system are usually negligible, or at least manageable. Another obvious game platform type is the home game console such as the Sony Playstation or the Nintendo Gamecube. These are indeed important, but because of the closed nature of the development tools and the expensive licenses required to create games for them, they are beyond the scope of this book. Other game platforms include Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) such as the Palm -based computers, and cell phones that support protocols that permit games to played on them. Again, these platforms are also beyond the scope of this book. Now that those little disclaimers are out of the way, let's take a closer look at the three game platforms of interest. It's important to note that by using the Torque Game Engine, you will be able to develop what amounts to a single code base for a game that you can ship for all three platforms - Windows, Linux and Macintosh! [3]Windows Windows has various historical versions but the current flavors are Windows 2000, Windows XP and the specialized Windows CE. In this book, the expectation will be that you are developing on, or for a Windows XP target system, since that is the version that Microsoft is now selling to the home computer market Within Windows XP, we will be using DirectX and OpenGL as our low-level graphics Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). These APIs provide a means for our engine to access the features of the video adapters in our computers. Both DirectX and OpenGL provide basically the same services, but each has its strengths and weaknesses. With Torque you will have the choice of letting your end-users use either API. OpenGL's greatest strength lies in its availability with different computer systems. This has obvious benefits for the developer, making it easier to create a game that works on the largest number of computers. OpenGL is an open-source product. In a nutshell, this means that if there is a particular capability that you want that OpenGL lacks, you can get access to the OpenGL source code and rebuild it the way you want. This assumes you have the skills, time and tools necessary to get the job done, but you can do it. DirectX is proprietary - it is the creation and intellectual property of Microsft Corporation. Its biggest advantage is that it tends to support more features than OpenGL, and the 3D video adapter manufacturers tend to design their hardware to work with DirectX as much as they can. With DirectX you get a much more complete and the most advanced feature set. Unfortunately, you are limited to Windows-based system if you put all your eggs in the DirectX basket. The Torque Game Engine uses both APIs, and gives you a rather straightforward set of techniques to setup your game with either. This means that in a Windows version of your game you can offer your user the option of using the API that best suits their video adapter. [3]Linux For most people, the single most important reason to use Linux is the price - it's free. You may have to pay to get a distribution of Linux on CD with manuals at a store, but you are paying for the cost of burning the CD, writing and printing the manuals, and distribution. You don't have to pay for the operating system itself. In fact, you can download Linux from many different locations on the Internet. As a game developer, your interest in targeting Linux will be three-fold. · Linux is a growing market place, and any market that is growing is a good target. Although the market is growing, it is still smaller than the Windows market. However, the place where Linux is growing is in universities, colleges and other post-secondary institutions - and this is probably where your best computer gaming audience is. · There are few computer games available for Linux desktops; most developers focus on Windows because it is the biggest market. If you ship a game for Linux, you will be a bigger fish in a smaller ocean. That gets you exposure and a reputation that you can build on. And that's nothing to sneeze at. · Linux offers more a more configurable and secure environment for unattended Internet game servers. Linux servers can be run in a console mode that requires no fancy graphics, buttons or mice. This allows you to utilize slower computers with less memory for servers and still get the computing power you need for your game server. Unlike other operating systems, Linux comes in a variety of flavors known as distributions. There are many ongoing arguments about the merits of one distribution or another. Some of the more popular distributions are Redhat, SuSe, Mandrake, Turbolinux, Debian, Slackware, and Caldera. Although they may be organized differently in some cases and each has its unique graphical look and feel, they are all based on the same kernel. It is the kernel that defines it as Linux.