Abstract
WarmWind is a 3D game developed with Unity 3D as the essential engine, Maya and 3DSMAX as model makers, Photoshop and Illustrator as UI designers, Visual Studio as the developing environment and C# as the programming language. It is integrated by three main game genres: Puzzle game, Stealth game and Tower-defense game. Meanwhile, the game also serves as an enlightening story based on current global problems --- severe environmental conditions and the indifference among people. Hence, the game not only provides our players vivid game experiences, but also euphemistically raise their concern of social problems.
Trailer
Game Introduction is Available at: WarmWind.pdf. You are more than welcomed to download and have a check!
Background
Because of the factories' over-utilization of natural resources and unlimited pollution, the land on which the story starts is suffering from deforestation and harmful air conditions. Under such a circumstance, our character, Joshua, who was born in the countryside, could no longer stay with his beautiful nature because of the exacerbating environment. Both perplexed and infuriated by that, he decides to expel those factories. There is one land survived among the pollution --- The Pure Land, on which grows a Noah Seed. If the seed burgeons, the world will be back in good environment again. However, what is impending is a series of painstaking processes, since the factories are also trying to utilize the energy inside the seed. Joshua’s assignment is to do anything possible, including expelling the hazes, stealing batteries from the factory and defending the village from the invasion of robots to protect the seed until it burgeons.
Conception
The purpose of this game is to provide players with vivid game experiences and raise their social concerns. Meanwhile, the game differentiates itself from other games in the following aspects:
- a) Various playing modes and genres to attract the players all the time.
- b) The typical use of particle effects, lights and physical engine makes the game elegant, dreamlike and real.
- c) Reflects problems in the real world.
- d) Supports multi-platforms. Including but not limited to: Windows, Linux, MacOS, WP, Android and iOS.
- e) Emphasize a sense of beauty, rather than violence and destruction.
Execution
As one of the most essential principles of the establishment of Mistral, we greatly take care of user experiences. In order to maximize their entertainment, we have innovated in the following aspects:
- a) Optimize the logic of scripts to reduce the expense of hardware.
- b) Use low-poly models and integrated atlases to reduce draw-calls, triangles and vertices.
- c) Natural transition from one game mode to another.
- d) Creatively added fog blocker mode in the Puzzle mode, and weather system in the Tower-defense mode, which makes the game totally different from other games.
- e) Use dynamic showing system, dialogue system and quest system to give player more guidance.
All of the aspects mentioned above will be discussed in detail later.
Graphics
All the models except the packages stated at the end of this document are created, constructed and ameliorated by our two 3D artists. The sense of beauty is greatly emphasized in WarmWind, which is directly exemplified in the game. Meanwhile, however, we also use contrast in the graphics style between the beautiful nature and the polluted area to arise the sense of duty in players’ mind.
Mistral also takes care of efficiency and execution. In order to reduce the expenses of hardware, we have optimized WarmWind in many different aspects. When it comes to models, we utilized low-poly models to decrease the amount of triangles and vertices. We also integrated all the textures into one main atlas, which means the GPU could finish rendering all the models by calling the atlas only one time, and thus efficiency is enormously increased.
When it comes to the lights and shadows, Mistral applies Lightmapping to pre-bake the static objects in the scene and save the alterations caused by the lights into lightmaps, which means the GPU no longer needs to calculate these things each frame. However, in order to minimize the negative influences caused by the optimization, the dynamic objects are quite different. When they are visible to the player, they will be rendered each frame to make sure that they look more natural and real.
Engine And Programming
WarmWind is developed with Unity 3D as the essential engine (as shown in Pic 3) and scripted with C#. Mistral utilized Object-Oriented Programming to create different controllers, systems, functions and game objects to constitute the game. The logic of the game is like a pyramid, which means that the game controllers are the uppermost and essential commanders on the top of the pyramid, while the mechanics such as laser-fences, cameras, enemies, mines, NPCs and items locate in the bottom. The player, dialogue system, tutorial system and quest system are the connections between the top and the bottom. Whenever a game object is triggered, it formulates a signal, transmit it through the connecting systems to the controlling center and is reasonably manipulated by making relevant alterations.
In order to improve the coherence and productivity of the codes, Mistral utilized Coroutine and State Machine to control animations, motions and interaction to increase efficiency. Secondary operations are manipulated during coroutines rather than main procedures so that system resources are allocated more reasonably. Furthermore, a game object could become active if and only if when corresponding signal is sent to it. The game object would cause no operations when it is deactivated, and thus trivial and unnecessary calculations are saved.
In order to increase the reality in the game, we also used the Physical Engine integrated in Unity 3D. Along with the dynamic lighting system and particle systems, we have created many fantastic effects.
We also developed the dialogue system, camera-roaming system, dynamic showing system and tutorial system to reinforce user experiences. With the help of these systems, the players would quickly know the operations in this game and start playing.
Entertainment
WarmWind contains various game modes to prevent the player from getting bored and keep them always active and concentrated. Experiencing with different game genres also increases entertainment. The game contains Puzzle Mode, Stealth Mode and Tower-Defense Mode.
In the Puzzle Mode, the player has to fight agains the hazes caused by the factory to defend the Noah Seed. The player may turn the fans and purifiers on or off, based on the electricity he has ane the coming direction of the hazes.
In the Stealth Mode, the player has to sneak in the dangerous factory, cautioning the robots and detection devices and steal the batteries. The player also has to deduct more information from the e-mails and letters of the workers.
In the Tower-Defense Mode, the player has to control the construction, upgrade and arrangement of different towers to prevent the enemies from approaching the Noah Seed. We have creatively added Weather System which could influence the speed and armor of the enemies.
According to the feedbacks from our 109 testing players, they regard such an arrangement reasonable and interesting. They are fully immersed into the experience of protecting the Noah Seed. Approximately 65% (71 of 109) of the players finished the whole game experience of the demo without stopping once. 80% (87 of 109) of the players regard the difficulty as very reasonable. The difficulty gradually raises and flows during their gaming experiences.
