Pencilvania: Architecture Review Presenters: Christopher Buska (Art Director) Michael Gourlay (Developer) Alfred Sterphone, III (Project Manager) Special Guest: Marshall Powers (Lead Architect)

Purpose & MOV  Purpose – To create an enjoyable gaming experience that anyone can pick up and play.  MOV – unique downloads.

QFD Game Engine Module A.I.Physics Stability88 Response Time87 Ease of Use11 Memory Reduction88 Attractiveness37 Speed85 Totals:36

QFD Control Module Keyboard Input Gamepad Input Stability88 Response Time10 Ease of Use88 Memory Reduction11 Attractiveness11 Speed99 Totals:37

QFD Display Module Graphics Stability5 Response Time9 Ease of Use1 Memory Reduction9 Attractiveness8 Speed7 Totals:39

QFD Sound Module Sound EffectsMusic Stability77 Response Time81 Ease of Use11 Memory Reduction11 Attractiveness88 Speed11 Totals:2619

QFD User Interface Menu SystemMap Editor Stability57 Response Time48 Ease of Use99 Memory Reduction12 Attractiveness76 Speed15 Totals:2737

ICED-T  Intuitive – 4 Ease of use Learning Curve of controls and game rules Simplicity of the user interface  Consistent – 3 Game play remains consistent throughout levels Graphical and musical style Menu System  Efficient – 3.5 Game response time to user input

ICED-T  Durable – 3.5 Game does not crash, handles errors gracefully Game will play the same on faster systems released in the future  Thoughtful – Easy maintenance of code Addition of new levels is simple Is the game fun to play?

Gantt Chart

Function Points & COCOMO  Function Points and COCOMO must be recalculated due to very recent architectural changes.  In summation, however, complexity will be drastically reduced from previous estimates.

4+1 Architecture  Logical View – Internal communication across modules  Process View – Process in terms of player perspective; what happens  Development View – Development environment and tools  Physical View – Operating platform  Use Cases – Game play and other scenarios

Logical View Control Module Takes keyboard/ mouse/gamepad input and translates into events Display Module Abstracts the display Sound Module Loads and plays sounds Game Engine Module A “Switchboard” module which mediates communication between the other modules Game Implementation Module Contains the game state data structure Handles the game physics UI Module Controls main screen and menus

Process View

Development View

Development Tools  NUnit – C# unit testing module.  SubVersion (SVN) – Source control.  Mantis – Online bug-tracking database  Visual Studio 2005 – IDE  TikiWiki – Project portal

Physical View

Use Cases  Installing the Game  Un-installing the Game  Selecting a Profile  Playing the Game  Starting or continuing a game  Making progress in the game  Adjusting Settings

Performance  At least 30 frames per second  In-game responsiveness Imperceptible response time “No delay” between input and feedback  Quick load times  Minimum Specs Windows XP.NET 2.0  Computers that meet our minimum specifications will not have any foreseeable difficulty in running our software.

Trustworthiness: Safe  What is “safe” in a game? This game will NOT kill you. Critical errors will not corrupt your computer. Game errors will not crash Windows XP.

Trustworthiness: Reliable  Our game piggybacks on SDL, a very mature open source project.  Unit testing ensures that modules and their member functions operate appropriately without testers interacting with the actual game environment.  Test driven development forces the programmers to think logically about what each function accomplishes before writing actual code.

Trustworthiness: Secure  Level editor Loading stock or custom levels will simply fail if unrecognized syntax is inserted into them.  User input Unmapped input is dropped/ignored  Currently pursuing an open source solution for product key implementation.

Operations and Administration  Run executable.  Play game (controlled with keyboard or gamepad).  Create levels for game use.  Game installation.  Player Administration (creation, modification, deletion).  Upgrading game.  Patching game.  Un-installation of the game.

Error Recovery  Game errors will not crash Windows.  Game errors will not crash the game without informing the user of the error that occurred.  No unhandled exceptions.  All game inputs will be checked before use.  Reinstallation of game will not clear user files. The player will be able to continue where they left off.

Error Recovery: Unrecoverable  Corrupted executable  Corrupted level files  Disk Error (disk full, access errors) We attempt to write to the drive before starting the game as an attempt to determine if there will be any access errors.  Video hardware error  SDL library corruption or SDL not found Need to reinstall SDL

Error Recovery: Recoverable  Corrupted music / sound effect files Inform player and continue without sound  Sound hardware error Inform player and continue without sound  Corrupted user data Inform user that a new profile must be made

Any questions? Thank you for your time!