For reasons still being researched, volcanoes started to appear all over Antarctica, flushing resources of unprecedented value onto the earth's surface. Although the resources legally belong to the state of Antarctica, the immense value of said resources led other fractions to claim ownership. Day after day, new gatherers arrived, trying to capture as much as they could. As the situation got out of control, the world union decided to legally distribute the resources all over the planet. In a time of great decadence it was decided that shares shall be dispensed based on the outcomes of deadly robot-matches inside the volcanoes. Since then, engineers all over the world have constantly been working on improving their robots in order to be able to explore and to claim the deadly depths of Antarctica's volcanoes.
Members
Dominik Käser, Christian Oberholzer, Janick Bernet
The game features 2-4 players competing against each other (mainly in death match, but other modes such as control point or capture-the-flag are also conceivable) on one screen, viewed from a fixed angle (no scrolling, but automatic zoom has to be tested). The screen wraps around: if a player leaves to the right he will enter from the left and vice versa.
The competition takes place around a lake of lava. Large pillars stick out of the lava into the sky. Between the pillars, there are islands hovering on different heights. The players can stand on these islands, change the paths of the islands and go from one island to another. Islands can collide with each other and pillars, which can result in islands and/or pillars falling down and taking other objects with them. When a player stands on an island, it will slowly lose height because of the added weight. If a player leaves the island before it eventually sinks into the lava, it hovers back to its original position. Sunken islands can be replaced by new ones using a ray of cold water.
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This chapter describes a first software prototype of the main game mechanics and shows our findings based on its evaluation.
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Part 3: Interim Report
This chapter describes how the game developed from an early prototype to nearly the finished low target. It describes step by step the work that has been done and the changes to the original planning and schedule that have been made.
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Part 4: Alpha Release
This chapter describes the status of our alpha release: what has change from the last milestone, what we completed and what is still open or could be improved.
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Part 5: Playtesting
This chapter summarizes the results of the testing sessions that have been organized to
test Project Magma.
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Part 6: Conclusion
This chapter describes the last changes in Project Magma before its final incarnation as Magmageddon and our overall conclusions on the project.
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