S i i x S t t r i i n g
G a m e D e s s i i g n D o c u m e n t t
M i i c h a e e l l
T
C i i h m
K e r r
B u i i
T s s r n r e g i i n
M a
– d n u
P a t t n r n a s s f o f o i i
S d l l n l l e u o l l
– c l l u t t
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L
– e
D
M
L a a e e d e e s s n i a i a
T g d g e n e a e e
T r s s r
/ e
/ t t s s
A e t t r r r r e t t r
D i i r e c t t o r
K e e v i i n K i i n g P r o d u c e r

High Concept ..................................................................................................................... 3
Genre .................................................................................................................................. 3
Target Platform ................................................................................................................. 3
Key features ....................................................................................................................... 3
Story ................................................................................................................................... 4
Background ....................................................................................................................... 4
Core Game Play ................................................................................................................ 5
Game Flow / Description .................................................................................................. 5
Game Play Elements ......................................................................................................... 6
Game Physics and Statistics ............................................................................................. 8
Artificial Intelligence ........................................................................................................ 8
Modes of play: ................................................................................................................... 9
Configurable Game Options: ........................................................................................... 9
Deathmatch: .................................................................................................................... 10
Target market.................................................................................................................. 11
Market Competition Analysis & Feature Comparison ............................................... 11
Legal analysis .................................................................................................................. 12
Cost and revenue projections ......................................................................................... 13
2D Art ............................................................................................................................... 14
3D Art ............................................................................................................................... 14
Graphical Effects ............................................................................................................ 14
Animation ........................................................................................................................ 15
Marketing Materials ....................................................................................................... 15
Music: ............................................................................................................................... 16
Sound FX: ........................................................................................................................ 16
Level Designs: .................................................................................................................. 16
The Menus ....................................................................................................................... 18
Mock Designs ................................................................................................................... 24
The HUD .......................................................................................................................... 25

G a m e O v e r r r v i i i e w : : :
H i i i g h C o n c e p t t t
Six-String is a DM based first-person shooter for the PC that combines “Matrix”-like physics with an arsenal of guitars and an over the top sense of style owing to the anime “Furikuri”.
G e n r r r e
Six-String is a arena based first-person shooter with an anime style.
T a r r r g e t t t P l l l a t t t f f f o r r r m
 Windows 2000 (should work on 98/Me and XP, but not “officially” supported)
 Pentium III 800
 Geforce2 MX
 SoundBlaster Live!
 CD-ROM
K e y f f f e a t t t u r r r e s
This is the main feature of gameplay as well as a new variation on the classic FPS.
Whenever a player jumps or walks off a ledge, they can opt to “stick” to the nearest wall by pressing jump again. This changes the direction of their “personal gravity” to pull down towards that nearest wall and rotates the player so they land feet first on the new ground. The new gravity lasts until the next time the player performs a switch.
Melee combat with guitars is incredibly stylish and gratifying. As a result, we want to encourage melee as much as possible in the game. One way we do this is by making melee more advantageousness with a charging system. You can either repeatedly swing for quick chops or you could hold the button down and release after building up for a stronger swing.
The melee guitar can be used as a shield to absorb a share of the damage. This lends itself to having a collection of guitars with different stats to choose from. For example, the amount damage absorbed, the swing build up time, and the strength of the swing can all be varied.

The guitars can also be used for your standard FPS weapons (rail gun, machine gun, shotgun, rocket launcher) in addition to the melee. How does a guitar fire rockets you ask? Well these guitars aren’t your standard issue guitars. They’re hi-tech, highpower, high styled weapons of mass destruction. Each guitar is capable of picking up one “gun riff” at a time.
An offspring of the ability to gravity switch, the levels in Six-String will be truly 3d.
Since the player can move in any direction and stand on any wall, any surface in the game is a potential battlefield and many times they’ll be fighting opponents attacking from the ceiling above.
Six-String is an arena style first-person shooter offering deathmatch gameplay only.
Up to 16 players at a time will be able to play each other over the internet.
Computer controlled bots can be added to the game to make things more challenging and add to the number of opponents.
S t t t o r r r y
The competitors in the game are all chasing after the “Riff of Fate”, which if attained grants its owner ultimate power. No one knows exactly what the riff is or how to obtain it, but they all have their reasons for wanting to control it. What they do know is that others are pursuing the riff, and finding it first is all that matters.
B a c k g r r r o u n d
The Matrix (1999) – “… In the near future, a computer hacker named Neo discovers that all life on Earth may be nothing more than an elaborate facade created by a malevolent cyber-intelligence… [http://movies.yahoo.com/]” In this artificial world the characters bend the rules of computer-generated physics to perform gravity defying leaps off walls and from building rooftops. (see following art insert)
“Furikuri (FLCL) is an anime series produced by Gainax (Nadia, Gunbuster, Neon
Genesis Evangelion...) and I.G Production (Ghost In The Shell, Jin Roh, Blood the Last
Vampire). It's a 6 episode OAV. The first was released on April 2000 and the last one on
March 2001. [www.furikuri.com]” At times throughout the series guitars engineered by alien technology serve as guns, hi-powered melee weapons, and the ultimate symbol of manhood. (see following art insert)

G a m e M e c h a n i i i c
C o r r r e G a m e P l l l a y
Six-String is above all a first-person shooter.
The game is full 3d, meaning the players will make full use of running on the walls, and the structure of the levels should extend in all directions.
Players can jump and change the direction of gravity so that they can walk on all the walls.
The combat consist of gun and melee combat. Melee combat includes a charging system for swings as well as a shield system using the melee weapon. The gun weapons can be equipped one at a time and are picked up like standard FPS weapon pickups.
The gameplay is deathmatch based multiplayer, with up to 16 players at a time. It can include AI controlled bots if desired.
G a m e F l l l o w / / / D e s c r r r i i i p t t t i i i o n
You spawn in a room with two halls leading into it, a long straight hallway to your left and another shorter one directly in front of you, both empty. Also, you notice the shotgun pickup for your guitar lying ¾ of the way up wall to your right.
Right now that pickup looks pretty nice, and if it weren’t for the variable gravity you’d be out of luck. You head towards the wall, jump, and land feet first next to your prize. You grab the weapon calmly, but no sooner than you’ve switched your guitar into gun mode that calm ends.
In the blink of an eye, an opponent drops down from that long straight hallway which is now directly above you. “That was a pretty fast entrance from a deserted hallway,” you think to yourself… this enemy’s no newbie. He knows that falling down a hallway is much quicker than running down one, and it makes for a nice ambush.
The rival lets loose with a spray of rapid fire from his instrument as he works his way across the walls towards the shorter hall. You take a good amount of damage before managing a blast that connects solidly. You’ve dealt enough damage to make him nervous and he hastily exits out the hall to safety.
A couple more blasts from the shotgun and you’d have finished him off, but why settle for that. It’s time to show off your “mad melee skillz.” You flip the guitar around and grip it by the neck… now you’re ready to rumble.

You dash into the room and spot the opponent standing on the ceiling in the far corner of the room. You begin charging up your swing as you leap up and tear along the nearest wall towards your target. He continues to launch bullets in your direction as you close the gap. Just as you’re upon him, you let loose the powered up swing.
The weakened challenger is helpless as the arcing body of the guitar comes crashing down.
G a m e P l l l a y E l l l e m e n t t t s
The game will have two or more character models (male or female) each with a selection of colors for it. There is no difference in any of the abilities of the characters.
There are three guitar models to choose from: Stinger, Redline, & Lucy. There are three stats that vary from guitar to guitar: power, speed, & defense.
Power – This is the amount of melee damage dealt by the guitar.
Speed – This is the rate at which your melee charge bar fills.
Defense – This is the amount of damage the guitar absorbs when used as a shield.
These stats only affect the guitar in melee mode. They have no effect on the gun mode weapons whatsoever.
Power
Speed
Defense
Stinger
Low
High
High
Redline
Med
Med
Med
Lucy
Very High
Low
Low
To gravity switch, while the player is in the air (either from jumping or falling) if they press jump again their gravity will switch. Gravity is now in the direction of the closest wall to the player. The player will fall towards this wall and rotate so they land on their feet. Since this is a FPS, the camera view will also rotate with the player.
There are a couple of additions to the system to make it more forgiving to the player. Firstly, gravity switching will be allowed only once each time the player is airborne. This avoids cyclic levitations and other opportunity for general bugginess.
Secondly, if the player transitions onto a slight incline (either by walking onto a neighboring platform or landing on it from a regular jump) their gravity would switch automatically. This allows the player to walks up slight hills without having to do a

gravity switch. However, this does not mean the player can run up a 90˚ angle wall without performing the gravity switch. Also, there is no damage dealt for long falls.
The guitars can function as either a melee weapon or a gun weapon. There are no restrictions on switching between the two except you need to have a gun pickup before you can switch to gun mode. Mode switching functions like a standard weapon selection, except there are only two choices: gun or melee.
The melee guitar attacks can be charged up by holding the fire button. While charging, the bar fills at a rate according to that guitar’s speed stat. There are three distinct levels of attack on the charge bar: less than halfway, halfway or more and full bar. When the attack is released, the amount of damage dealt corresponding to which level was charged to. There are no “in between” amounts of damage.
While the guitar is in melee mode it can be used as a shield. The shield absorbs damage from both melee attacks and gun attacks equally. The amount of damage absorbed depends on the guitar’s defense stat. You cannot charge your melee attack bar while shielding.
Each guitar can function as a number of different gun weapons. Throughout the arena gun pickups can be found for each of the different guns. Walking over a gun pickup automatically picks up the item. The pickup disappears and will respawn after a set amount of time.
The guitar can be equipped with one gun at a time. Once equipped with a gun, the player can switch his guitar into gun mode and fire the equipped type of weapon.
Gun pickups also function as ammo pickups if the weapon is the same type as the weapon already equipped.
Rail gun – the rail gun is a high damage gun that fires in a straight line. It has about a 2 second delay between shots. The rail gun is the only gun that does not need ammo to fire.
Machine gun – the machine gun fires in a straight line, has low damage, and almost no delay between shots.
Shotgun – the shotgun has a blast cone. The closer you are to your opponent when it hits, the higher the damage. It has about a 1 second delay between shots.

Rocket launcher – the rocket launcher fires a rocket projectile in a straight line.
When the rocket collides with a wall or the player it explodes causing damage to anything in the blast radius. The closer your opponent is to the center of the blast, the higher the damage. Only one rocket can be fired at a time.
These are the secondary items that are placed throughout the level. The player uses the item as soon as they walk over it. Items will respawn after a set amount of time.
Health – item gives the player 25% of their health back.
Melee boost – item doubles the melee damage dealt by the guitar at any stage of charging. The effect lasts about 10 seconds.
Speed boost – doubles the players walking/running speed. The effect lasts about 10 seconds.
Defense boost – halves all damage dealt to the player for about 10 seconds.
G a m e P h y s i i i c s a n d S t t t a t t t i i i s t t t i i i c s
The physics in the game functions pretty naturally, other than the gravity switching.
Players will have momentum and slow down after running. There will be no slowing down while moving up or down inclines since the player’s gravity would have already switched to counteract this (if they’re walking on a surface, then gravity is straight down towards that surface). Also, friction will be constant over all types of surfaces.
Since much of the game could be played out mid-air, movement/changing directions will be allowed while in flight. If players collide in mid-air, they would stop moving, but since they can still change directions they could hold the movement keys and slide past each other. Falling velocity would be capped to a fix maximum (much like a normal terminal velocity).
Being shot or hit with the guitars and also kickback from shooting or swinging the guitars will not affect the players’ movements.
A r r r t t t i i i f f f i i i c i i i a l l l I I I n t t t e l l l l l l i i i g e n c e
In the case where the maximum number of human players is not reached, the game will be able to provide AI bots. Six-String will provide 4 difficulty levels the player may choose for computer opponents.
Easy: This kind of opponent will try to lose to the player. It is intended to allow the new player the chance to win while getting accustomed to the game.

Normal: This kind of bot will be challenging to a player with average-skills at playing the game.
Hard: The hard difficulty level is targeted at the experience first-person-shooter player. The AI agents will try to win in combat.
Expert: The expert bot has perfect abilities. The computer will try it’s best to beat a human player. In this setting, the AI agents have perfect aim as well as good reaction time. Only very skilled players should be able to defeat the computer controlled bots.
There may be any combination of bots playing at one time. For example, the player may choose to play against 2 easy bots as well as 3 normal bots at the same time, for a total of 5 computer controlled opponents.
M u l l l t t t i i i p l l l a y e r r r
M o d e s o f f f p l l l a y : : :
Six-String was designed with deathmatch in mind, and will be the focus of the game. Our goal is to make sure Six-String’s deathmatch does not feel repetitious after a couple hours. To ensure this, nearly every part of the deathmatch experience will be configurable so that each match can be a different experience.
C o n f f f i i i g u r r r a b l l l e G a m e O p t t t i i i o n s : : :
 Time and Frag Limit
A stable of all FPS’s!
 Number and Skill of Bots
A challenge awaits at any time, for any skill!
 Which Weapons and Power-ups are Available
Promote the gameplay you enjoy!
 Weapon/Melee Damage Amounts
Play for realism or for a fragfest!
 Starting Health Amount
Finally a game that lets you decide!
 1-Shot Kills
If you like Insta-Gib, you’ll love this!

D e a t t t h m a t t t c h : : :
It’s every man for himself in a wall to wall (to wall to wall) shootout! The first player to reach a set number of frags or have the highest score when time runs out wins. Players start out with only their melee guitar in an all out battle to get frags, explosive weaponry, and amazing power-ups. Combine quick, accurate aiming with devastating melee blows to come out champion of the fragfest!

M a r r r k e t t t A n a l l l y s i i i s
T a r r r g e t t t m a r r r k e t t t animated violence – suitable for early-teens and older (14+).
M a r r r k e t t t C o m p e t t t i i i t t t i i i o n A n a l l l y s i i i s & F e a t t t u r r r e
C o m p a r r r i i i s o n
One of the forerunners of First Person Shooters (FPS’s), the Quake series has had a leading role in setting the standards of FPS’s. Although true, it is still a ‘basic’ game with stereotypical weapons and simplistic game-play. Quake sticks with its oldies but goldies and doesn’t deviate from it at all. Six-String deviates from the
Quake design in almost all aspects. For example, Six-String introduces the wallcrawl system and uses guitar-based melee as a strong part of player combat. Just these two combined could lead to dramatic battles that could never be seen in
Quake.
Although a remake of an old classic, its life span was short lived. Even so, there are elements of the game which Six-String incidentally has and improves upon.
In Wolfenstein, the player was limited in how many weapons they could carry at the moment. This forced the player to be decisive in what weapon was suitable for the situation ahead of them – and is basically the only thing the player could do. Six-
String coincidentally limits the players to only one ranged weapon (a.k.a. “the gun”) at a time. But if the player ever feels they are completely outgunned by other players, the player has several options in order to counter the situation. In one case, the player may pull out the guitar and prepare for melee combat. But contrary to common sense, this is helpful. Since the guitar can act as a shield against gunfire, it is a critical defensive item as well as a powerful offensive thus assisting the single ranged weapon system.
A mod for Half-Life but is a fairly realistic modern combat FPS with an obscene number of weapons. Counter Strike is also a mainstay in the FPS realm since it has so many players. Taking an extreme detour on the realism displayed in
Counter Strike, Six-String allows for more fantastic and energetic type of game play.
Jumping on walls and running around while swinging a guitar, then blasting people with the same guitar is a good change of pace from standard FPS’s in general. But if anyone were to ever become tired of realistic scenario’s, Six-String can and will provide a different experience.

Light Sabers are synonymous with the words Star Wars. And of course the topic of conversation regards the guitar melee combat. In Jedi Knight, players could switch to light sabers and depending on the direction moved when swinging, the player would swing in different directions – and once in a while if two light sabers collided, the screen would flash white. Six-String’s version of melee combat will be more elegant, flashy, and variable. When two players swing their guitars and they collide with each other, sparks and other effects may burst off from the impacting guitars. Additionally, there will be the ability for the player to charge their swing for increased damage and possibly range. And since the choice of ranged weapons on hand is limited, the usage of melee guitars is far more frequent and quite encouraged.
L e g a l l l a n a l l l y s i i i s
Many third-party tools are not legally useable in a DigiPen game due to restrictive license agreements. However, we have found several useful libraries and utilities that appear to meet both the technical and legal requirements for our game: FMOD, a freeware music and sound effects system; Worldcraft, a BSP map editor for Half-
Life; and TNT 1 , a freeware linear algebra package.
 FMOD: From the FMOD homepage, “…if your product is not intended to make any money, and is not charged for in any way, then you may use FMOD in it for FREE!”
 Worldcraft: The latest version (now called Hammer) forbids using the editor to make anything but new Half-Life levels. However, no such mention is made in the license agreements for any of the previous versions. Therefore, we will be using Worldcraft v3.3 or lower to make our maps.
 TNT: According to the source code, “Pursuant to title 17 Section 105 of the
United States Code, this software is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.”
1 may change if a better (freeware) package is discovered.

C o s t t t a n d r r r e v e n u e p r r r o j j j e c t t t i i i o n s
Pentium III class workstations ...........................................................$500 x 5
Visual Studio 6.0 Professional Edition .............................................$435 x 5
Visual SourceSafe 6.0 ........................................................................$450 x5
28 weeks paid salary to Junior Level Programmers ...................$25,000 x5
Advertising .........................................................................................$10,000 x 1
A medium sized run will be made for video game and electronics stores. If this run is successful, more copies will be produced. Six-String will also be available through our own website. Sales through the website will be more profitable due to cutting out middle-man profits. The game will be sold at a cheaper rate for those who only want to download the game and not be sent a box. This will make our profit margin higher, and increase sales. We are undercutting most other games in hope that we will receive enough sales to justify the cut. This strategy has been very successful for Serious Sam, which is in our genre.
MSRB (stores) ...................................................................................$19.99
Price to Stores ....................................................................................$12.99
Internet Price (box) ............................................................................$19.99
Internet Price (download) ..................................................................$14.99
Manufacturing of 25,000 Boxes ........................................................$30,000 ($1.20/ea.)
Storage and Removal of Unsold Copies ............................................$1.50
Profit projections:
10,000 Boxed Copies Sold + 2,400 Internet Downloads ...................$0
25,000 Boxed Copies Sold + 6,000 Internet Downloads ...................$213,695
50,000 Boxed Copies Sold + 12,000 Internet Downloads .................$619,385
100,000 Boxed Copies Sold + 24,000 Internet Downloads ...............$1,178,770
*Sales estimated to be 70% stores, 20% internet download, 10% internet box

A r r r t t t
2 D A r r r t t t
2D art will involve textures for the character models and background meshes.
Other 2D art will be various muzzle flash effects, explosions, burst flashes, particle sprites, and other effects/graphics.
- Character textures – full body and face
- Background textures – full environment, themed
- Sprites – muzzle flash, explosions, burst flashes, particles, other
+ Item Sprites
3 D A r r r t t t
Consists of character models, guitars, and other models that require a 3Dmodeling editor. All design is at artist’s discretion (!).
- Character models
+ 500-800 poly’s (estimate)
+ Will need textures for cloths, face, and hair
- Guitar models
+ 200-400 poly’s (estimate)
+ Will need textures to fit guitar look of
+ Textures will probably be hand-drawn unless can find a source to base off
- Bot models
+ Should be different than character models – low priority
+ Same requirements as character models
G r r r a p h i i i c a l l l E f f f f f f e c t t t s
Aside from 2D and 3D based sprite and models, graphical effects will primarily be algorithmically based. Design will be referred from designer to artist (for confirmation) to programmer.
- Beam effect
+ Fades with distance
+ May leave a particle trail
+ May have lighting
- Tracer effect
+ Resembles a comet with a head and trailing tail
+ Head will be brightly colored
- Particle effect
+ Burst, flow, stream, etc
- Simple effects
+ Roving line

- Advanced effects
+ A ‘large beam’
+ Has volume
+ Artist reference: envision large beam effects from Thunder Force 5
A n i i i m a t t t i i i o n
Animation will be done through key frames and algorithms with the models. 2D sprite animation will be delivered with given specs (.bmp, dimensions, size, frames).
- 2D Animations
+ Explosions
+ Bursts
+ Textures
+ Item Pickups
- 3D Animations
+ Running foreword/backward
+ Jumping
+ Jumping onto wall
+ Dying
+ Swinging (multi)
+ Shooting/Recoil
+ Duck
+ More?
M a r r r k e t t t i i i n g M a t t t e r r r i i i a l l l s
Materials and Art needed for official release.
-
Cover art
-
In-game screenshots
-
Plastic CD box
-
Manual

S o u n d a n d M u s i i i c : : :
M u s i i i c : : :
Streaming music will be used for pretty much all of Six-String, from the opening screen, to the levels in the game, to the closing credits.
Six-String will encompass a curious mix of music to foster the zany feel of the game.
Starting at the opening screen, there will be an offbeat weird song to get you in the mood. It will be “anime-esque”.
The player must specify a folder holding mp3’s if he wishes to hear any music during gameplay. If not, there will be no music playing (there will still be sound FX).
At several points in the game, situational tracks will start looping. Examples are urgent music when time is running out, or surprise music when someone has just obtained the super dangerous-power-up. These tracks will play over the original background music (which the player has provided in the folder).
S o u n d F X : : :
The static sounds in Six-String will include GUI sounds, special FX, character noises, notes played in the riff system, and other game play elements.
GUI sounds include the clicking of a button on a menu.
Special FX include explosions, gunfire, and reload sounds.
Character noises include grunts of pain, death sounds, excitement outbursts, and possibly more taunts.
Other gameplay elements include the sound of a new power-up being offered, the riffs you make with your guitar, and the sound of obtaining your power-up.
L e v e l l l D e s i i i g n s : : :
Levels in the game have to take advantage of the full 3d environment. Considerations of where walking on the walls is beneficial and how it affects the gameplay have to be taken. At this time only one level design is being proposed, though more will follow later in the project. The game is deathmatch only, so there is no structure of a campaign through the levels, the just choose the current map they would like to play.
This level consists of one long, empty, rectangular shaft that runs the entire length of the level through the center. Surrounding the inner shaft is an outer shaft that has various

passage ways cut through into the inner shaft. The outer shaft is not empty like the inner shaft; it has walls and other obstacles, as well as branches to small rooms. The gameplay goal of this level is to have players jump simultaneously into the inner shaft and engage in a freefall aerial combat down the length of the shaft. Since gravity can be switched, once they reach one end of the shaft they could turn around and fall through again. There are also jousting style possibilities with the level.

U s e r r r I I I n t t t e r r r f f f a c e
Six-String’s user interface will be much the same as other FPS GUIs, but with our superior talent - better of course. [Cue smile].
When the game first loads the player will have the choice of selecting various game-play modes, options, credits, and depending on our moods at ship-time, will be provided an exit button. As the player makes his or her choices each menu selection will lead to another screen with yet more widgets and buttons to push until the person either quits the jgame or joins a game, hopefully the latter.
Once in game the player will be presented with an animized HUD. The player can expect to see: health; the ping time to the game server; a way to tell if a riff is currently activated; a visual representation of the riff keys (indicating when they’re depressed, in addition to tool tips or hints specifying how to play a riff pattern/sequence); kill count; armor; a timer for limited power-ups; and you get the idea.
T h e M e n u s
Menus are volatile. Add one new button and everything changes. If only all the buttons and graphical bits that make up the front-end were planned out ahead of time, the world would be a better place. That’s what this section tries to address. What do we need? The question should be answered as near to completion as possible by the end of this UI section of the document.
Since this section is very clearly a list of all the elements that will be ON the interface and not WHERE, figuring out how to best utilize the screen real estate will be a topic best left for another discussion.
The root menu, this leads to everything else in our game. This first menu should have in no particular order:
Leads to: 6, 13, 15
1. Single Player Mode – Description:
This provides a loop-back connection to the game server, with bots aplenty to kill. However before the person can jump right in to the game they need to decide how many bots they want to go up against. The person will also need to choose if the bots re-spawn, the difficulty setting assigned to the bots, et cetera.
Leads to: 6

2. Multiplayer Mode – Description:
Like any good FPS the player can choose to host a game or search for a game to play and set the options for the server all through the in-game interface.
3
Leads to: 13
Options - Description:
Graphics options, audio configuration, key binding, all that good stuff gets accessed here.
4.
5.
Credits -
Exit -
Leads to: 15
Us giving praise to ourselves :)
The end. Game Over.
Single player mode shares quite a bit in common with the multiplayer server configuration screen. How many bots are there? Will it be a deathmatch game? What maps are there to select from? Where it differs is more important though.
Single player mode takes the multiplayer mode and dumbs it down. It disallows other people joining the game. That’s the only true difference between the two modes. This means that the only attachment that “Single Player” has to any of these dialogs is that it removes Human Competitors from the player selection slots, and makes it so that rather the only hostiles are bots. Hence we get GUI Object 10, which is a modification of a more generic object we find in the Multiplayer grouping id-ed number 15.
One last thing worth mentioning – campaigns. If at some point the game is in such a state that everything else is done there may be time to add in custom scenarios. Custom scenarios may dictate the game type, the end game conditions, and may even allow for cooperative play. Should this happen “Single Player” would affect a whole lot more than just GUI element 10. Everything would be predefined and “Single Player Mode” would need to be expanded to provide for these additional graphical representations that represent the campaigns.
Comes from: 0
Leads to: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Affects: 10
7. Game Type - Description:
What’s your flavor? CTF, Deathmatch, Team

Deathmatch, Tourney-style brawling? We want it too, but early on in Six-String the only guaranteed game mode will be Deathmatch. Later we hope to add more styles of play.
Affects: 8, 9, 10
8.
9.
End Game Conditions– Description:
As the game type changes so will the possible end game conditions. If it’s a CTF game the players will probably want a way to configure the number of flags needed to win. Needless to say in deathmatch there aren’t any flags and the option should be removed.
So a comprehensive list will need to be worked out for each play type. Since we’re aiming to only create
Deathmatch at the moment, the interface needs only to have:
Frag limit – X
Time Limit – X
Dependent on: 7
Game Options- Description:
This is pretty much an extension of End Game
Conditions, what if we get around to adding “Team
Deathmatch”? How will we implement friendly fire? We need to plan for the unforeseen. So a section of the display where we can add drop down boxes, text boxes, and buttons will be another challenge. Or, how about a deathmatch game with “no respawn on death”?
Dependent on: 7
10. Bot Selection- Description:
Since we’re dealing with a single player mode the player needs to be able to pick the number of bots they want to go up against and the level of difficulty of those bots.
How this gets done is really a big unknown. Do the bots share the same AI? Or is the AI done on a bot-to-bot basis? a.
If the bots share the same AI we need two dialogs:
1.
A way to input the number of bots.
It would probably be a wise idea to make this

a drop down box. The computer can only handle so many bots and if the player arbitrarily types in a value things can get messy.
2.
The group difficulty of the bots. Hard, Easy,
Normal, whatever the choices, another drop down box makes sense. Buttons work too. b.
If the bots have individual AI’s we’ll need bot selection to be roughly the same as the multiplayer implementation. The bots will fill slots and next to their slots there will be a selection of choices that modify that particular instance of the bot. ie/
Player type: Difficulty Setting:
Bot #1
Bot #2
Impossible
Easy
Assuming we get team based combat implemented we’ll need to pay attention to the team assignments of the bots.
If we do get to this step, it would probably be easier to organize things in the “b.” fashion for designation of team colors.
Dependent on: 7, 6, and 15 (Note: minus human players)
11. Map Selection - Description:
In its simplest form it can be a drop down box with the names of the map files.
There are obviously better ways to do this and if I were to have my pick I’d make little graphical icons that double as buttons.
12. Back Button- Description:
The road home to the Main Menu.
This will easily be the hardest section of the interface to design. It’s the heart of the game and because of it there’s more to display. Multiplayer divides in to two halves: Server and
Client. The server will have more varied choices than the single player selection, but not by much. Then there’s the client, which could either be extremely simple or incredibly complex.
For example, if the player knows the machine they want to connect to all that’s required is an IP address and a port. On the other hand if the person doesn’t know the address of

the machine, the game will have to either access a game server to find available deathmatch sessions or the networking code will have to scan for broadcast messages.
Make no mistake the networking is obviously the one doing the more difficult of the two jobs, but displaying the information in such a way that the list of servers is useful to the players requires string parsing, sorting, and additional filtering techniques.
However, our goal is simple first and robust later. Hopefully this mantra will guide our efforts.
Leads to: 14 and 16
Comes from: 0
The server uses everything from Single Player and expands on 10 to allow people to join in to the game.
Dependent on:
Leads to: 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, and 15
Affects: 15
Comes from: 13
15. Opponent selection - Description:
Anything that affects an instance of a “player” gets crammed in to this section. This section determines the type of player , the team for the player, and depending on the type of player the AI level .
Dependent on: 7, 14
At its simplest the client is composed of two text boxes, one for inputting the address and the other for typing in the port. On the other end of the spectrum the player knows nothing and the game searches for possible games to join. The likelihood of this getting done is nil. So I won’t even explore the possibility.
But if somehow the game did reach this level of development the game would need to display information in a spreadsheet-like fashion, with the name of the server, the name of the map, the type of connection and ping, and the number of players currently in the game over the max allowed, for each server found. A far cry more complicated than what we need.
Leads to: 17, 12
Comes from: 13

17. Direct Connect- Description:
If the player knows the machine they want to connect to, all they need to do is type in the dotted decimal address and the port.
The game is going to have to be configurable graphically, the controls need to be adjustable, and various other system settings will probably need to be accessible at some point to the player. This section will have need of a lot graphical widgets. Sliders, text boxes, lists, the options are too many to number. Suffice to say that we’ll need to be able to cycle through different video modes, turn full screen on and off, change the characters name, adjust the audio settings, and do a whole bunch of game tweaking from this section of the menu system.
Leads to: 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 12
Comes from: 0
19. Characters name- Description:
Setting the characters-in game name.
20. Key-bindings - Description:
A list of all possible in game actions and their associated primary and secondary character mappings:
Run / Walk, Walk forward, backpedal, step left, step right, up / jump, down / crouch, turn left, turn right, sidestep / turn, attack, next weapon, prev weapon, guitar weapon #1, guitar weapon #2, …, guitar weapon #n, show scores, use item, gesture, chat, chat – team (if applicable), chat – target (if applicable), chat – attacker
(if applicable), guitar string #1, guitar string #2, guitar string #3, guitar string #4, guitar string #5, guitar string
#6
21. Video Mode- Description:
An enumeration of all possible resolutions
22. Color Depth - Description:
Setting the raster device to either 16-bit or 32-bit.
23. Effects Volume- Description:
Sound fx volume slider
24. Music Volume- Description:
Background soundtrack audio volume.

25. Fullscreen mode- Description:
Toggle between on and off
26. Control Options- Description:
Mouse speed slider, smooth mouse toggle, free look switch, center view button, joystick toggle, “always run” option, “autoswitch weapon” (if applicable) on/off switch
M o c k D e s i i i g n s
Now that we have the smallest atomic elements of our UI we can come up with a few possible looks:
[Mock background image provided by http://www.furikuri.com
, all rights reserved]

T h e H U D
Cutting straight to the chase the Heads up Display will show the players:
1.
Health
2.
The ping time to the game server.
3.
Tool tips or hints specifying how to play a riff pattern/sequence
4.
Weapon selected
5.
Ammo limit (Or unlimited)
6.
Kill count
7.
Armor
8.
Timer for limited power-ups, charges, etc.

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