DROD Koifman Eran Egri Ozi Supervisor: Alexander Arlievsky

The Problem Open source projects developed by independent developers tend to be “Spaghetti” projects. Traditional games define a closed set of features and object. In order to add a feature or a new object the “traditional” game’s source code must be altered.

Project Goals Creating a new.NET platform for the game. Creating a generic platform which will enable the users to assimilate new code into the platform without changing the source code. Develop a platform which will not be game specific.

Solution Overview Creating a base infrastructure which will provide common features and services for external objects. Creating objects which will be assimilated into the infrastructure at run-time. The assimilation does not require changing the infrastructure source code. Creating a simple interface which will enable the user to add new features and objects to the infrastructure.

Solution Overview Implementing DROD object and features in order to demonstrate the infrastructures capabilities. Creating the DROD 2D world in which the DROD game will be played.

Problems And Solutions Creating a new unknown type of object and assimilating it into the infrastructure. Factory object. Using the.NET reflection. Inheritance from a basic object known to the infrastructure (BaseObject).

Intercommunication Communicating between the infrastructure and the unknown objects. Communicating between the unknown objects. Message based communication. Each objects will contain a mailbox. Creating an engine which will supervise the flow of messages.

Creating The 2D World Generically creating and assimilating different 2D worlds into the infrastructure without changing the infrastructure’s source code. Screen Creator object. Screen Sequence object. Map Manager object. Screen Manager object.

Object Behavior Creating new feature and behaviors and ascribe a certain behavior to an object. Dynamically changing objects’ behaviors at run-time. Handlers associated to messages. Handler Manager object. Associating preliminary behavior to objects using a simple text interface.

Finding Unknown Objects Searching an unknown object in the infrastructure at run- time. Searching according to features. Searching according to object type. Yellow Pages object. Unique ID given at creation. Categorization according to implemented interfaces.

Saving And Restoring States Saving the current state of the infrastructure and the unknown objects within. Restoring the state and the objects at a latter time. Serialization mechanism. Multiple file usage. Clearing the current state and restoring the saved state.

Multi Threading Creating a multi- threaded infrastructure. Protecting critical sections. Threads for players, decoration, monsters, and engine. Mutex protection on the infrastructure critical data such as Map Manager object.

Timing And Priorities Creating object priorities. Creating Message priorities. Manager and supervise the timing in the infrastructure. Message priorities in the mailbox. Object priorities according to implemented interfaces such as “IPlayer”, “IDecor”. Timing using the Engine object.

Future Development 3D Engine. Network support. Input devices support such as joystick. Editor environment which will create new worlds.

Older Development Environments Versus.NET Reflection mechanism in.NET. Portability in.NET. Extensive GUI support in.NET versus MFC. Extensive object collections in.NET versus STL. Problems with the serialization mechanism.