Net Hack and Colossal Cave Adventure

Today I played two games called Net Hack and Colossal Cave. These games were made in the 1980's, however both of these gameshave the prime principle that games in the current era inherit. The main mechanics have gone almost unchanged since the very beginning of gaming.

Colossal Cave Adventure

After playing Colossal Cave it has made me realise where the idea of adventure games has developed from. The concept of the game is to progress through the game selecting routes and by examining different areas of the paths ahead. The most enjoyable thing about thsi game is the sense of imagination that it brings out in the player. The way the game works is that there is a brief discription of the path ahead, allowing the player to imagine the scene and make a decision based on what the can 'see'. This would be the reason as to why the game was so popular in its prime. However, the manor of the game would mean that the player must be rather imaginative to continue to be amused by the game. Anyone with a low sense of imagination will struggle to be entertained and would give up with the game rather quickly. Also the way to play the game is not very clear and at some points I found the game hard to understand and unsure of how to play the game. The grammer that is used in the game is descriptive and trys to describe the scene as clearly as it can in a brief sentence or two, this way the game can compensate for the lack of graphics and can focus on the gameplay to keep the attension of the player. The main advantage of this game in relation to modern games is the focus on gameplay and imagination drawn out of the player.

NetHack

NetHack is another adventure game, however this game uses basic graphics such as symbols to represent various things. The most enjoyable thing about the game is the exploration of the many floors of the game. As you progress through the level you begin to toggle the visibility of the walls and corridoors, allowing you to discover different paths. Other than the lack of fancy graphice, I cannot thing of much faults in the mechanics of the game and this makes us realise that the modern games are very similar to the original versions. The game was very enjoyable to play and the exploration features of the game make it playable for longer than Colossal Cave Adventure. Most of the features in NetHack are still used in Modern role playing games. I believe that NetHack was a very important landmark in gaming and showed players the main mechanics of adventure gaming.

Introduction to UDK

For the first week, We looked at the first steps to making a level in UDK (Unreal Development Kit). 

To start off a level, I need to make some walls, a floor and a ceiling. To do this I can use the Cube Brush. 

This will allow me to make a cube, all that needs to be done to make this a wall is to set the dimensions, then Add some mass into it. This is done by clicking the CSG Add Button on the UDK toolbar. 

When you add some mass to the brush, you are left with a Addative mass, which in the case of making my level, it is now a wall. This is what the wall looks like once it has been made:

The blue and white checkered pattern on the wall shows that the wall has not material or textures on it. This is the default theme for all newly created addative masses.

Do the same procedure for some more walls, and make some horizontal ones to create a floor and cieling and then you have a room. This is my first room in UDK:

Another technique I learned this week was that there are ways of creating multiple walls that use very little space to store them. This technique is very important as this will make the game run more smoothly as there is less memory used to run the level. This technique is done by converting a created mass into a static mesh. A static mesh will allow me to duplicate a single wall to make multiple walls. This is done by right-clicking on the edge of a created mass and selecting convert > To Static Mesh:

Now the wall has been turned into a static mesh, we can now select it from the Content browser.

Click and dragthe newly created static mesh into the Perspective view and then we can move the wall into place to create a room very quickly and efficiently. This is a very important technique to use if I will be making duplicated of any objects in my game.