TeksphereX Review

COM138 – Software Development II

Patrick Logue & Mark Daly

TeksphereX – What is it?

TeksphereX is a top down style arcade game build in Visual Studio C#.NET and making use of the
XNA Game Studio Framework. The game was designed similar to that of Space Invaders, Galaxians
and Galaga. The models in the game used (i.e. the user ship, enemy ships and bullets) are all 3D
Models developed in 3DS Max by both Patrick Logue and Mark Daly. We decided to give the game
both a retro feel and a new age feel by keeping the style top down but when the models moved in
the left or right direction we rotated them showing that they are in fact 3D Models thus keeping the
feel of a newer aged game but still keeping it retro with the top down style.

TeksphereX – Meet the team

Our team consisted of two members who have experience with 3DS Max and also with XNA Game
Studio. With having previous knowledge of how the XNA Framework was used and the power that it
has it made our team more valuable and comprehensive when it came down to developing the
game.

Patrick Logue - Lead Programmer / Sub 3D Modeller

Mark Daly – Lead Modeller / Sub Programmer

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TeksphereX Review
COM138 – Software Development II
Patrick Logue & Mark Daly

TeksphereX – How was it built?

The game was built by collecting many resources before even thinking about starting to program or
design any of our ideas or models. We collected information on older games and whatever
information we can find from the web. We found out things such as:

 The looks of vehicles

 How the vehicles manoeuvre / respond to user movements
 The background of the game stays in the theme of the game
 The sounds of each element on the screen and when they are made
 Keeping score elements and what / when to accumulate to the current score
 Keeping the button configuration simple
 Trying not to have linear gameplay by keeping enemies moving at random

By gathering all of the above information this enabled us to adhere to good game building standards
as we have included many of the already well known and well enjoyed elements of games which
have succeeded in being enjoyed throughout the years.

We have tried to adhere to the best of our abilities that our structure of programming, naming
variables and naming methods are conventional and that the names reflect on the actions they carry
out. By doing this we made sure that the code was readable and could easily be edited if need be.

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TeksphereX Review
COM138 – Software Development II
Patrick Logue & Mark Daly

TeksphereX – Change log

Legend

a = Alpha, b = Beta, f = Final, r = Revised

0.1a

 First dry run to make sure everything was setup ok

0.2a

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TeksphereX Review
COM138 – Software Development II
Patrick Logue & Mark Daly

 Background drawn and made to fit

0.3a

 The first 3D model is drawn on top of the background and is centred

0.4b

 Gone into beta because interaction using keyboard is successful

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TeksphereX Review
COM138 – Software Development II
Patrick Logue & Mark Daly

0.4r

 Keyboard input was revised and updated to fire bullets from the ship upwards

0.5b

 First enemy is drawn onto the background for testing purposes.

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TeksphereX Review
COM138 – Software Development II
Patrick Logue & Mark Daly

0.5r

 Enemy model has been enlarged and a score board added. Points increase by 10 each time a
ship is destroyed.

0.6

 When the bullet hits the enemy ship, the enemy ship will respawn in a new random location
on screen.

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TeksphereX Review
COM138 – Software Development II
Patrick Logue & Mark Daly

0.7f

 Extra message added to the screen for the ESC command. Theme song added in.

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TeksphereX Review
COM138 – Software Development II
Patrick Logue & Mark Daly

TeksphereX - Testing

We both have tested TeksphereX vigorously and to date we can find no outstanding problems with
the game. The game runs smooth and has no runtime errors or missing references / assets errors.

Here are the test results

Input Expected Output Actual Output

Left arrow key press Ship to strafe left As expected
Right arrow key press Ship to strafe right As expected
Space bar press Missile to fire from ship in an As expected
upward direction
Missile colliding with enemy Enemy to change location, As expected
missile to disappear and score
to increment by 10
Theme song loading The song to start from the As expected
beginning and play through
Escape key press Window to close thus exiting As expected
the game

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TeksphereX Review
COM138 – Software Development II
Patrick Logue & Mark Daly

TeksphereX – Final Thoughts

From the start to the finish of making TeksphereX we both had a good time in designing the models
and programming the methods. The final product is a conclusive show of what we have came out
with after putting our skills into practice and producing a 3D Game.

Currently the gameplay of TeksphereX works and is fun. The aim of the game is simple, you control a
small ship at the bottom of the screen using the left and right arrow keys and then you use the space
bar to fire missile at the enemy ahead of you. If you hit the enemy with one of your missiles then you
get 10 points and the enemy will respawn in a new random location on screen.

We used an old sounding 8 bit song for our own theme music. We thought that this would fit well in
with the style of the game and keep it feeling classic and retro because of the sounds from the song.

Even after this game has been submitted and assessed we will continue to work on this game and
add more features to it for the learning benefits.

Both of us really enjoyed this as a project and think that the game is a good reflection on our
knowledge of C#.NET alongside the use of the XNA Game Studio and we are happy with the final
product.

- Patrick Logue
- Mark Daly

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