by Lau Yiu Man & Leung Wai Kei Ricky Advised by Dr. Frederick H. Lochovsky

 

As the Internet is becoming more and more popular, gamers tend to shift from playing with computer artificial intelligence on their own at home to real human opponents through the Internet. Online games such as Ultima Online and EverQuest cause addiction to millions of gamers all over the world. They provide a great time and experience in having fun, as players can interact with real people in real time and in different countries. These world-class online games are enjoyable and addictive, but people have to spend no less than several hours in order to learn the complicated playing method. Moreover, these games last at least an hour each time. Thus, there is a market for a simple and easy to play, but exciting online multiplayer game. In this project, we developed an Internet multiplayer action game that is suitable for all ages. The playing method is extremely simple, but the graphics and game-play are very attractive. Players control characters from comic books and cartoons such as Superman and Spiderman. The name of our game is BomberHeroes, and the playing method is very much the same as the famous TV game call Bomberman. The mission of the gamers is to destroy all other opponents using bombs.

 

The project development was divided into four phases: design, implementation, testing and evaluation. Within the four phases, we focused and tackled the problems of each part of the game, which include the display, the input, the sound and the network. Moreover, we overcame the difference in hardware configuration of different
	PCs, and also the instability of the Internet. This results in an enjoyable, addictive, stable, smooth and real-time Internet multiplayer action game that can satisfy online gamers. Apart from developing the game through the four phases, we have also constructed a homepage for this project. It mainly acted as an up-to-
date player guide and a communication channel between the gamers and us. People who are interested in the game can get its latest information while they can even download the latest executable from this web page. Gamers also helped us to test and to evaluate this game by providing us with numerous feedback and suggestions through the email forms either in the homepage or attached to the game.

 

In this project, we have successfully developed an exciting Internet multiplayer action game and a multifunctional homepage for it. We learnt not only how to plan a project and work as a team, but also the process of developing a game and interacting with users. From the software development process to the design of artwork and the utilization of different kinds of Internet technologies, this project enabled us to expand our knowledge beyond the academic courses. We learnt how to integrate and apply graphics, website, networking and software engineering. This is also a valuable experience for our future career. This project progressed smoothly and on schedule because of the great effort put and long time spent. Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to our advisor Dr. Lochovsky for his great support and guidance, the gamers that sent us feedback and suggestions, and also the artists who provided the artwork.