Chapter 3 DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY This chapter presents a comprehensive analysis and design required in every system development.

The system development life cycle is a step by step process used in developing a computer based system. It includes project design, project development, operational and testing procedure and evaluation procedure. Project Design This phase includes research and observation about existing structure word and games and adventure games, its nature, and design. The proponents research

conceptualized on how to make a word game more exciting and challenging and so they come up with not just a plain word game but with added adventure to attract and give entertainment to players. The concept of Game Disaster: A Word Game Challenge came from video adventure game, Adventure Island and a word game called the Hole in Words put together to develop an exciting and challenging game which also provides learning. They gathered all the data that they will be using in the development of the proposed game. The images, words and the questions are collected for the whole game.

When the proponents have gathered all necessary data and information, they enumerated and designed the

29 functional requirements and the algorithm to serve as a guide upon development of the proposed game.

A. Functional Requirements

The Player The first thing to do to come up with the design of the character is to create its graphics and animation. The logic to design its movements has to be made. The player must be allowed to control the character movements using keyboard inputs. The character must jump or move up, down, left and right.

Game Categories Disaster Level Categories This must be consists of adventure game before every category starts. Adventure games will be named as Tsunami Island, Earthquake City and Storm Island where the character must collect all letters that will appear on the screen. A flag must appear after the character collected all letters. The Adventure text game which will have 2 minutes timer will appear after the character hits the flag. A clue box must be made to

30 store all collected letters to be formed in the answer box. A clue button must be made where a clue in the form of a picture will appear when the mouse is placed over the button. When the player completes the adventure text game, he will be directed to the level challenge. There are three level challenges which will appear after every adventure text game. Tsunami level challenge must be consists of words that have the same meaning. synonyms A on word the on the left box must have from its the right. Selected letters

synonyms of the word on the left will appear on the right which will also serve as a clue to the players. This must start at level 1 up to 8. Timer on level challenges starts at 5 minutes and decreases by 30 seconds as the level increases. Earthquake level challenge must contain words with opposite meaning which is known as antonyms. Level will start from 9 up to 16. Storm level challenge must contain words that are analogous. A pair of word on the left must have its analogy on the right. A clue box in the level challenges must contain all letters needed to complete each. Level will start at 17 up to 24. The game must allow keyboard inputs from players. Letter keys must be functional to enter letters, backspace to delete and space bar to move to the next available slot. The player must also be allowed to click a slot where he wants to fill out letters. If the player failed to finish a level, there must be an option where he can play again. A pause menu must also appear to allow player to pause the game. Survival Challenge

31 This must be consists of questions and trivia that must be answered within 1 minute. Keyboard- based must also be supported to enter answer. This will be the last category and will start at 25 up to finish which is 30. A prompt must be visible to indicate that the player has completed the game.

Scoring Mechanism The score of the player is based on a unique scoring mechanism designed by the proponents. In the adventure, one letter collected will have 5 points and the total will be the score of the player upon finishing the adventure game. In the level challenge, which consists of 5 pairs of word, one completed word will have 50 points. Upon completing the level, the remaining time will be added to the players total score. Five top scores must be recorded in the game.

Sounds and Music Selection of sounds and music is also a requirement to make the game more exciting. It must also be placed properly to produce pleasant results.

B. Game Flow Algorithm

The algorithm of the game is represented by the set of rules that precisely defines a sequence of operations. The figure below shows the flow of the game that has been used

32 as a guide to the proponents for the upon developing the game. Figure 2 shows the flow of the adventure game which appears at the beginning of every disaster level category. The flow of the adventure game begins with having the letters of the word/s to be used be in random order. The word/s are retrieved from a separate text file reffered to in the programming codes. Next is initializing the players position on screen as well as establish its movements. This is achieved through setting the x and y position of the object or the character. Keyboard inputs will be allowed to control the movements. Arrow keys such as up, down, left and right will be used to make it jump or move up, move down, move to the left or to the right. When the character hits a letter, it is added to the collection of letters which will serve as the source of letters that will be used to formed the words/s and 5 points will be added to the players score. If the player is hit by a debris or a lightning, his adventure game will be over. If he finishes collecting all letters and hit the flag, he will be able to proceed to the adventure text game where he will formed the correct word/s from the letters that he has collected in the adventure game.

Figure 3 shown below is the flow of the adventure text game where the player must give the correct words/s to proceed to the level challenge. This begins with setting the clue string to the corresponding the answer letter string collection to which and consists of all letters collected by the player during the adventure game, set empty

33 initialize timer. If the player fails to form the word with the given time, the game will be over. If the answer string is equal to the given word/s which is retrieved from the text file, the player can now move to the level challenge. When the player click a letter from the clue box, the letter will be placed to the answer trays empty/selected spot. The value of the answer string will be the content of the answer tray. And when athe player clicks a letter from the answer tray, it Set Random_N to random will be placed back to the clue tray. If the player place the
Get line [Random_N] from text clue mouse file over the and store to string _WORD value

button, the clue characte form sof an letter to inIf a image

letter

Ye

Move the

r hit will appear and moving a the mouse away a will set the collectionto clue letter No Add 5 points to score

invisible. letter of Display every string_WORD in random order to the background

Get player movement

If movemen t is equal to up

Ye s

Jump character to move up

If characte r is hit by a debries or lightning

Ye s

Game Over

a No

No

If movemen t is equal to left

Ye s

Move character to left

If character hit a flag or all letters are collected

Ye s

Move to adventure text game

No If movemen t is equal to right

Ye s

No a

Move character to right

No

If movemen t is equal to down

Ye s

Move the character down

No

34

35

b Set clue string to letter collection Set string_Answer to empty Chart Start the timer

Figure 2. Adventure Game Flow

If timer is equal to 0 No

Yes

Game Over

If string_Answe r is equal to string_Word

Yes

Move to Level Game

No If player click letter from clue tray No If player click letter from answer tray No

Yes

Move letter to selected slot of answer tray

Set string_Answer to answer tray Yes

Move letters to clue tray

Set string_Answer to answer tray

If mouse pointer is over the clue button No

Yes

Set clue = visible

Set clue = invisible

Figure 3. Adventure Text Game Flow Chart

36

Figure 4 shows the flow of the level challenge. This begins with setting the counter to 1 and randomize the words that will appear in the every level. Five sets of words will appear in each level. Data from the text file will be retrieved and increments the counter by 1. If counter is more than 5, set the value of answer string and word string to empty. Set the clue string to the value of the word to be formed and have it randomized. Initialized timer and if it is equal to 0, the game will be over and the player can play again. Clicking the letter from the clue tray will let the letter be placed on the answer tray and add the letter to the answer string and

37 clicking it from the answer tray would let the letter placed on clue tray and update value of string. If the answer string is equal to the word string, the player can now proceed to the next level. If level is equal to 8, 16 and 24, the flow of game
[0..4] to value will go back to the adventure game which also Answer tray of that denotes c Set string_answer

the player is playing another level category. If level is equal to 30,

Set counter the to 1

player

now

completes will appear

the

game
If string_Answ er [0..4] equal string_Word [0..4]

and with

a the

Congratulations the game.

Set random_N to a random value players score. This

Get line [Random_N] of string from text file and store to string_Word [counter]

message

together

indicates that the player has completed

Increment counter by 1

No

Yes

If counter is less than or equal to 5

Yes

If level is equal to 8 or 16 or 24 No If level is equal to 30

Yes
a

No

Yes No
If timer is equal to 0

Yes

Game Over

Level increment by 1

Display congratulation s message

No
If player click letter [c] from clue tray

c c Yes Move letter [c] to selected slot of answer tray Stop

No
If player click letter [c] from answer tray

Yes

Move letter [c] to clue tray

No

Figure 4. Level Challenge Game Flow Chart

38

Set string_Answer [0 to 4] to empty Set string_word [0 to 4] to empty

Set clue string to value of string_word [0 to 4] Random the value of

clue string timer to start timer

Set

39

C. Functional Hierarchy Diagram The proponents also designed a functional hierarchy diagram to show the functionalities that the game will have. It will also guide the proponents in developing each module based on the specified flow of functionality of the game application.

Main Menu

New Game

How to Play

Setting s

High Scores

Credits

Quit

Music

Sound

Full Screen

Figure 5.Functional Hierarchy Diagram

40 Figure 5 shows the functionalities that the game must have. New game will direct the player to the start of the game and will let the user input player name. How to play will serve as a fundamental instructional material for players to know the basic mechanics and rules of the game. Settings will give players choice on enabling and disabling music, sounds and full screen mode. High Scores will record and update top five high scores of the players. Credits will show details on the developer of the game. Quit will allow user to end the game. Project Development After designing the system, the proponents started

transforming the design into programming codes. We have used Adobe Flash CS5, one of the many versions of Adobe Flash pages. provide to add animation, Flash animation of video, and interactivity to and still web manipulates vector and raster text, drawings, graphics to images.

ActionScript 3.0 is an object-oriented language that allows far more control and code reusability when building complex Flash applications. Game Disaster: A Word Game Challenge is developed using an object -oriented language. A fla file contains all images and user interfaces. All graphics and animation that must be seen in the game are made using Adobe Flash CS5. The proponents placed programming codes on frames to control the different objects used in the game. They also created a document class where all classes will refer to it. A class file contains all functions to be declared. Each classes were coded in an as file to define functions of specific

41 objects that is used in the game. All this files are kept in the same folder to allow interaction between objects with their declared functions. Text files are also placed inside the folder to retrieve word/s that is used in the game. With the use of the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR 2.0) in our flash source file, the proponents easily made an installer of the game and the executable files will play on the Adobe AIR player that will provide a rapid graphic movements and interactivity with the keyboard. The it to run. proponents also enumerated the hardware and

software specification that the game application requires for

Hardware Requirements At least 2.0 GHz processor or higher At least 30MB Hard Disk Space for data storage or higher At least 1GB of Memory or higher At least 512MB video card or higher Screen Resolution 1024 x 768 display Software Requirements Adobe Flash Professional Creative Suite 5 Operating System Windows XP Professional / Windows 7/ Windows Vista Adobe AIR 2.7.1 or higher

42 Operational and Testing Procedure In these phase, the proponents used three game testing methods to ensure that the game will meet its objectives and functionalities. Unit testing has been implemented to verify functionalities of each code section, also refers to component testing. Each unit has been tested to verify if functionalities are met. These units serve as building blocks of the whole game software so errors and bugs are solved. Integration testing was implemented to expose defects in the interfaces and interaction between integrated components (modules). In these test, modules are put together and verified to ensure that each module is working as it should as a part of the whole system. And lastly, system testing was done to ensure that the integrated system is working as it should.

Evaluation Procedure The basis if game software is evaluated has using been different achieved.

methods, first is by using the defined requirements as the software functionalities Functional requirements were checked to ensure that the software functions at it should. The game player/character, level categories, scoring mechanism and the main menu interface were evaluated in line with the listed functions so that the game software will produce a desirable output.

Second method is to evaluate the compatibility of the game to different computing resources and platforms. The

43 software was installed in different platforms with different hardware and software specification to test its compatibility.

Third software different

method through player

is

to

evaluate and if it

the

reliability upon the

of

the

comments to test

feedbacks provides

initial desired

playing of the game. The game was tested and evaluated by functionalities and to ensure that it is ready to use and play.