Cell Defenders
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Overview
Cell Defenders was made in fall 2012 as a requirement for my E101 Introduction to Engineering class. It was presented at the end of the semester during Freshman Engineering Design Day (FEDD) and won first place in the category of educational video games. The project was made by four students including me. Of those students I was the only one with computer science experience and game development experience. The concept of the game was to create a RTS wave defense, similar to many popular browser based games that I have played. One such game that inspired me to make this was Colony on Armor Games. The goal of the game is to control someone's immune system to fight against various viruses and bacteria. It was designed to be an arcade style where winning is not possible, but rather the goal of the game is to clear as many waves of enemies before you are overrun.
My Involvement
Since I was the only one with programming experience on my team, I was the sole creator of the game and its mechanics. The art was drawn partly by me and the other people on the team. Concepts and design were done by the other members as well.
My primary goal with programming this game was to design and fun and exciting combat system that would engage the player and allow for better education. I thoroughly enjoyed creating the combat system for this game especially when designing the engulfing attack used by the macrophage. The system I created was based on three primary resources to create the immune system cells. The hope is that the player would manage these resources wisely to defeat as many waves as possible.
Each cell had to fit its particular role that it plays inside our bodies. Due to this, each cell was given the ability to attack as well as special abilities that corresponded to its role. Overall these were quite simple to program after the immediate hierarchical structure was in place.
I had some fun with image blending in the creation of Cell Defenders. In order to make a believable blood vessel I wanted to create a dark atmosphere around the edges with random blood cells floating around. This was achieved by using a gradient that blended overtop the entire game and a faint scrolling animation of blood cells.
My only regret with the development with this game is that there was not enough time to add sounds and music to it. Had there been sounds, I believe the experience would have been more enjoyable, but sadly at the time I was inexperienced with sound development.
Controls
The controls for Cell Defenders mainly involves the mouse, like most RTS games. The keyboard is used only for a few hotkeys merely as a convenience. Each unit in the game can be selected and given three different types of orders. These controls are listed below in more detail for convenience.
Left Mouse Click (over friendly unit) - Select unit under mouse
Left Mouse Hold And Drag (over friendly units) - Selects units within box
Left Mouse Click (over command button) - Execute Command For Selected Units
A - Execute Retreat Command For Selected Units
S - Execute Stop Command For Selected Units
D - Execute Retreat Advance For Selected Units
Cell Defenders was made in fall 2012 as a requirement for my E101 Introduction to Engineering class. It was presented at the end of the semester during Freshman Engineering Design Day (FEDD) and won first place in the category of educational video games. The project was made by four students including me. Of those students I was the only one with computer science experience and game development experience. The concept of the game was to create a RTS wave defense, similar to many popular browser based games that I have played. One such game that inspired me to make this was Colony on Armor Games. The goal of the game is to control someone's immune system to fight against various viruses and bacteria. It was designed to be an arcade style where winning is not possible, but rather the goal of the game is to clear as many waves of enemies before you are overrun.
My Involvement
Since I was the only one with programming experience on my team, I was the sole creator of the game and its mechanics. The art was drawn partly by me and the other people on the team. Concepts and design were done by the other members as well.
My primary goal with programming this game was to design and fun and exciting combat system that would engage the player and allow for better education. I thoroughly enjoyed creating the combat system for this game especially when designing the engulfing attack used by the macrophage. The system I created was based on three primary resources to create the immune system cells. The hope is that the player would manage these resources wisely to defeat as many waves as possible.
Each cell had to fit its particular role that it plays inside our bodies. Due to this, each cell was given the ability to attack as well as special abilities that corresponded to its role. Overall these were quite simple to program after the immediate hierarchical structure was in place.
I had some fun with image blending in the creation of Cell Defenders. In order to make a believable blood vessel I wanted to create a dark atmosphere around the edges with random blood cells floating around. This was achieved by using a gradient that blended overtop the entire game and a faint scrolling animation of blood cells.
My only regret with the development with this game is that there was not enough time to add sounds and music to it. Had there been sounds, I believe the experience would have been more enjoyable, but sadly at the time I was inexperienced with sound development.
Controls
The controls for Cell Defenders mainly involves the mouse, like most RTS games. The keyboard is used only for a few hotkeys merely as a convenience. Each unit in the game can be selected and given three different types of orders. These controls are listed below in more detail for convenience.
Left Mouse Click (over friendly unit) - Select unit under mouse
Left Mouse Hold And Drag (over friendly units) - Selects units within box
Left Mouse Click (over command button) - Execute Command For Selected Units
A - Execute Retreat Command For Selected Units
S - Execute Stop Command For Selected Units
D - Execute Retreat Advance For Selected Units
Windows
Mac OSX