CS 248 1999 Video Game Competition

CS 248 - Introduction to Computer Graphics
Autumn Quarter, 1999
Instructor:
Marc Levoy

Teaching Assistants:
Sean Anderson, David Koller, Lucas Pereira, Szymon Rusinkiewicz

The final project for cs248 was to write a 3D video game. To help inspire our students to delve deeply into the wonderful world of graphics, we also held a public competition, where a panel of judges selected the best game from a set of 8 finalists. The winning group won a trip to Siggraph 2000 in New Orleans, while second and third place won a free dinner at Il Fornaio and Siggraph proceedings. In addition, all finalists were awarded their choice of computer game donated by Electronic Arts.

Contents:

More Screenshots:

We had more cool games than I have time to edit together. Here's a glimpse of the other games that submitted screenshots:

1st place: Gemstones

Eric Chan, Jy-ying Janet Chen

README
Platform: Mac
"You must recover gemstones by navigating a hovercraft through a space system created by the evil Empire. In particular, you need to find three special Diamonds while avoiding obstacles like crushing blocks, lava plates, and shooting boxes."

[Wow. The polish on this game amazed us all. It was hard to believe they had done so much in just four weeks. The images above are from levels 3, 2, and 1. Improved (html-ized) README and release version are in progress... -- Editor]


2nd place (tie): Night Stalker

Menelaos Levas, Ioannis Zapitis

README
nightstalker.tar.gz (SGI) (Octane & Onyx only?)
"NightStalker is a shootout game where you wander around taking out baddies while avoiding shooting innocent people. It is different from other first-person shooter games like Doom or Quake, because you have full control of your fire (you aim using crosshairs instead of just firing in the middle of the screen) but unlike Virtua Cop you also have full control of the movement of your character. This makes the game quite evolving since you must navigate around a complex setting, maintaining a high degree of concentration, as you need to carefuly and swiftly aim your fire with precision and accuracy against your targets (firing around in panic as in Quake will get you nowhere).


2nd place (tie): Merquest

Tanya Laidman

README
merquest.sit (Mac)
"merquest is an underwater adventure game. the premise is that you are a mermaid trapped in this underwater world and you need to gather 10 magical pearls to escape and win. ... while swimming, you run out of air so you must either swim through bubbles or go to the surface. ... you should avoid the sharks and lobsters. they are mean. they hurt you. jellyfish don't come after you, but if you swim through one, it will sting. ... some pearls are just lying around, pick them up. others are in treasure chests so you must find keys and open those chests. ..."


Honorable mention: Squad Commander

Will Buck, Erika Chuang,
Yu Ping Hu

README
squad.zip (PC)
"In Squad Commander, you control a squad of space ships to do battle with a computer controlled enemy squad. You directly control the squad leader's ship, and can issue commands to the computer controlled squadmates. The enemy squad is controlled the same way by a computer controlled squad leader...."


Honorable mention: Rolling Snails

Tea Hakara, Laurent Meunier

README
rollingsnails.tar.gz (Octane & Onyx only?)
[A snail racing game. These turbocharged snails go quite a bit faster than your garden-variety snail. The game feautured multiresolution terrain, composed of Bezier curves for each grid square, that could be tesselated to varying degrees depending on distance to the viewer. The terrain was fractally generated, while the track itself was created by an interactive edit mode where the snails would actually carve the track. -- Editor]


Finalist: M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction)

Adam Altman, Curtis Laser, Walter Luh

README
M.A.D.tar.gz (SGI)
The object of the game is to blow your opponent up. This can be done in three ways. The easiest way is to find the detonator in the maze that matches your opponent's color. Another way is to find the match and light your opponent's fuse. Once this is done, your opponent has a two-minute window where he or she can avoid losing. Your opponent can do this by finding the scissors, which cuts off the buring end of its fuse, finding your detonator and blowing you up before the two minutes are up, or by chasing you to ensure that you are within the blast radius of his or her explosion ensuring mutual assured destruction. The final way to blow your opponent up is to find your own detonator. This activates your self-destruct key. Using this key, you can walk up to your opponent and blow up in his or her face. Note that this does not guarantee the death of your opponent as it is still possible to run away from the blast area before he or she is engulfed.


Finalist: GridRunner

Soren Johnson, Julie Chin

README
grid.tar.gz (SGI)
Caption:
The Blue Player tries to cut off the Red Player, but watch out for that wall! GridRunner is a 3-D update of TRON's classic light cycles game. The game can be played by up to four users over a network. Further, the AI provides a worthy opponent in single-player mode. As the game progresses, the cycles go faster and faster, and the tails get longer and longer. So watch your back!


Finalist: The Matrix

Billy Hewlett,
Don Hoffman

README
matrix.zip (PC)
"No one can tell you what the Matrix is...you have to see it for yourself."



Pac 2K

Kyle Kuznetz, Frederic Mazzella, Nicolas Scapel

README.html
Pac2k_W98.zip (PC, win98)
Pac2k_WNT.zip (PC, winNT)
Our program is a 3D tribute to Pacman, probably the world most famous Video Game. In short : eat the pellets, avoid the ghosts or use the red Super-Pellets to eat them... If you eat all the pellets, then you go to the next level. You can choose between the camera position, from the classic 2D view to a fully immersive "you are Pacman" standpoint...

[The game is great, but the packaging is awesome. In addition to the InstallShield setup, the intro sequence is sweet. Make sure you've got the speakers turned up before you start. :-) -- Ed.]


Whoopass IV: Wrath of Whoopass

Alan Frindell, Ashley Ring

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manual.html
readme.html
whoopass.zip (PC, requires good graphics card)
You are an inexperienced robot thrust into a competitive arena with other robots. To survive, you must collect resources and treasure in the world before other robots do. Above all, you must also be able to defeat other robots in head-to-head combat. If you defeat them, you'll gain experience and abilities and maybe even some of their booty.


Dark Mesa Flight Systems Group

Sergio Marti, Bob Kunz

README
Flight_Simulator_2000.zip (PC)
The objective of the game is to fly around the environment and practice maneuvers such as taking off, landing, and flying by hazardous terrain and, of course, avoid crashing. Though this may sound like a simple game model, it is the basis of most commercial flight simulators such as Microsoft Flight Simulator series which is currently in the top 5 bestselling games. We also add the ability for the use to custom make their own terrains to fly through.


Viral Assault

Jeremy Johnson, Eric Ketchum, David Pecora

README
viralw98.zip (PC, win98)
The world consists of a 3-D polygonal model that represents the human heart and femoral artery leading to the heart. The world is inhabited by five types of enemies. The basic idea is to reach the heart and induce heart failure by killing the boss. You will accomplish this by reducing blood pressure (BP on the control panel) to zero. Note that the blood pressure will decrease by one every time you kill an enemy. However, it will only drop so much this way - you have to reach the heart and face the boss to win the game.

[Another game with great packaging. The zip file contains an InstallShield setup program. The intro sequence is sweet, too. It's enough to make your heart beat a little faster... :-) -- Ed.]


3-D Space Invaders

Victor Cheng, Michelle Cheng

README
3dspaceinvaders.tar.gz (SGI - raptors only? (not O2 or Onyx))
3D Space Invaders - Welcome to the next generation of space invaders! Aliens swarm down from above as you and a friend tackle them with your shooters, now armed with some advanced technology like shields and three powerful cannons. Take on some advanced aliens like the mad bomber in new worlds where the terrain affects your every movement.


Infinitum

Gary King, Dennis Hwang

README
Infinitum.zip (PC: requires nVidia RivaTNT/TNT2/GeForce, or a card that supports the ARB multitexture extensions)
[Control your forces to wage war against the computer or other players, similar to Starcraft. Infiltrate your enemy base, while keeping your own defended. -- Ed.]


MazeWar

Xiaofeng Ren, Bin Li, Quangqiu Wang

README
mazewar.zip (PC)
[Robotic warfare. The game environment is a maze, in which one family of mechs fight with the other. These robots actually have an animated walking motion. -- Ed.]


Valley Flight 2000

Ren Ng

README
valleyflight.tar.gz (SGI)
Valley Flight 2000 simulates a scenic flight through a river canyon. The canyon walls are parametrically defined, and the motion of the plane is smooth and realistic. The entire scene is reflected in the textured river surface. Win points for flying through hoops, but don't crash into them!


Wild

Shanchi Zhan, Haobo Xu

README
wild.tar.gz (SGI)
[A gunslinger game, with cool multi-pass reflections in the floor, and a map showing you all the other guys out to kill you. It's a tough crowd; you don't live long. That's ok; a new life is only a keypress away. -- Ed.]


Spherelings2000

James Falkner

README
spherelings.tar.gz (Sun)
Objective: Score points by completing as many levels as possible before running out of playing balls. To complete a level, the ball must travel the length of the field and strike the far wall on the bullseye. Objects can be placed in the field to deflect the ball in order to steer it to the target. A variety of tools can be chosen from the toolkit and placed in the field. The tools can then be rotated, translated, and their properties modified to affect the balls trajectory.

[CAD for kids. Similar to Lemmings... -- Ed.]


Basketball Shootout

Jichun Zhu, Ting-I Cheng

README
bballshootout.tar.gz (SGI)
Platform: SGI
The Basketball Shootout is a simple 3D graphic game to simulate shooting of a basketball. It was developed on SGI. The environment of the basketball shooting game is a stadium with a standard basketball court. The user can move the ball around in the stadium, choose a position and an angle and try to put the basketball in the hoop.



More Screenshots:

We had more cool games than I have time to edit together. Here's a glimpse of the other games that submitted screenshots:

BB on the Quad
Saurabh Aggarwal, Vineet Marwah,
Caesar Sengupta
Satellite Blaster
Tyson Singer, Liang Zhou
Asteroids3000
Jeff Huynh, Calvin Lew
PoolGame
Lorenzo Torresani
A Dog's Life
Bryan Cook, Ben Serebrin

[composite shot. -- Ed.]
project page
Duck Shoot
Duncan Riach
Reflex
Phil Sansone
Spectre
Eugene Davydov, Charity Lu
ShipAttack
Anita Garimella, Colin McCarthy,
Jake Wobbrock
Rubik's Cube
Song Yao, Jian Zhang, Luis Sentis
3-D Bust-a-move
Chris Hong, Kevin Lee, Ming (Michelle) Tam
The Gladiator
Danny Cheung, Dan Florea,
Gabe Grigorescu
Fishing Game
Yik Ping Li, Gladys Pang
Deadly Waters
Scott Mease
Fire In South Park
Gary Leung


lucasp@cs.stanford.edu
Copyright © 1999 Marc Levoy
Last update: January 3, 2000 08:37:24 PM