Keywords

.NET, WF, GDI, GDI+, Game Clock, Multi Threading, Sprites, Tiles, Game Loop, Bonus Managers, Custom Character Sets, Desktop, Game Development

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Introduction

Back in the day, say 10 years ago, I had a Playstation 1. On this little device I came a cross a puzzle game that I liked. A few years later that game, called SWING was ported to PC. I gave that game to my mother and guess what, she got hooked, just as me. That version of SWING was written with the use of DirectX 6/7, and doesn’t work on versions of Windows other than Windows 98/ME. The company, Software 2000 that made the game went bankrupt back in 2002.
A few ago months I found the original version of this little game for the PC. I just had to smile and thought, would it be nice to have that game again on XP/Vista/Windows7?

The Project

As I started this project, I wanted this project to follow the formal software development way. So I wrote a Software Requirement Specification also known as SRS based on the IEEE 830-1998 standard, which can be acquired on request. The game itself had the intention of learning purpose to it. The intention was to give the SRS to junior/medior programmers, so they could come up with a solution.

This implementation is my first draft, first run, my proof of pudding implementation, meaning, the code used isn’t production code, but basically to see if things are possible. Not to mention that I haven't programmed for a while.... The game itself had the intention of learning purpose to it. The intention was to give the SRS to junior/medior programmers, so they could come up with a solution. This implementation is my first draft, first run, my proof of pudding implementation, meaning that the code produced isn’t production code, but basically to see if things are possible. I used the following for creating this game:

I used Windows GDI because I have plans to port the game to .NET Compact framework as well. Those projects are on hold for now, but the will be here soon enough.

The Game Play

The game itself is basically a “Three-On-A-Row-Kinda-Game”, the twist is that the balls are dropped on pillars, that changes height according to the weight they carry, as each ball has a certain weight to it. 

Although it was the intention to follow the original game, I changed the game some what to make the project smaller. Given 6 weeks of time, the project should be finished as a shippable product. Later on new or alter feature would be integrated to the current version of the game. So I changed the Three-In-A-Row, to 4-In-A-Row and removed most of the animations of the original game. I left most of the explosions in the game to give the player the idea of actually playing a action/puzzle game.

The player is still dead when the ball hit the ball dropper on top of the screen.

The Game Technical

I started the game from scratch. Although I have written games before in different languages, I never could find the time to do it in C#. So I started with all basic elements of a game, by creating the game engine, containing the game loop, sprites, sprite tile sets and sprite managers. As the project went on, I added Bonus Manager, Score Manager and the presenter for the game clock.

By using inheritence and design patterns like strategy object the following scheme can be produced:

The Game Graphics

I got most of the game graphics by ripping them from screen shots and changing them using Paint.NET. The pixel size do matter when acquiring graphics, so remember the DPI setting. I had some trouble of fitting the graphics nicely. The solutions for this is to set the DPI to the right size.

Resolution Size / DPI settings

The pixel size do matter when acquiring graphics, so remember the DPI setting. I had some trouble of fitting the graphics nicely. The solutions for this is to set the DPI to the right size.

Show DPI code

If you forget the call to SetResolution(), the DrawImageUnscaled() method on a graphics device will not always work as expected, due to the resolution settings of the image.

Double Buffering

Because this game has all the aspects of an high action/puzzle game it needed a fast draw method without any flickering to the screen. By using the pretty common method of double buffering the game is more fluent.

<CODE EXAMPLE HERE DOUBLE BUFFERING>

The Things To Do

Although this game is playable and quite fun with it's explosions and stuff, like all software, it is never finished. Shippable okay, but far from finished.

I had some more idea's like network play and an uploadable highscore list, move away from GDI and do Managed DirectX, port to Windows Mobile by using the compact framework. Darn, I can think of more options and feature that I can program by myself.... Goosh... I wish I had a development team :D.

If I can find the time, I will start working on these things for future versions.

The Conclusion

It is pretty easy to build your own game with the .NET framework. I made this proof of pudding example with in a few weeks. Although my time and commitment to this project was pretty fragmented, the code works, but leaves a lot of room for optimalization.

I hope you have as much fun building your own game, as I did while crafting this game.

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