Systems Overview

The application will adapt the classic board game War of the Rings to a computerized game. The program will simulate as many aspects of the game as can be added in the given time, including:

  •         Display of the graphical playing map and characters as they move around the map.
  •         Display of characters, their attributes and any magical items they may be carrying with them.
  •         "Searching" for Fellowship characters by the Dark Forces player.
  •         Interactions between Fellowship and Dark Forces such as combat, capture and escape.
  •         Winning the game by meeting various conditions.
  •         Use of magic items and random events to change attributes of characters and the map.

    As time allows, more features, such as expanding the game from the simple "character" game to the more advanced "campaign" game, may be added. If all is completed within the allotted time, then optimization of the game may occur, lowering the system requirements by improving the code.


    The game will be developed for two players, using the Linux operating system and the Unicon high-level programming language. The goal is to allow two players to play against each other on two different computers by using the built in network programming capabilities of the X Windows System. Two different computers are going to be used because there are various parts of the game that only one of the two players should be allowed to view. Linux will allow us to setup a game server, and then remotely play the game against other players. The game display will be developed with a screen resolution of 1024x768, and if time allows, more resolutions may be optimized. The large game map and many card hands' will look best with high-resolution displays. The game will use keyboard and mouse input in a GUI system to allow the users to control their various characters and items in the game. The software will give output to the user in a GUI form, with text and graphics based descriptions and instructions of game characters, items and events. The system requirements will be made as low as possible. The speed of the computers that are available for the development of the game range between 400 MHz and 2 GHz, with RAM ranging between 128MB and 512MB. All run at 1024x768 resolution. The low-end development system should hopefully run the game without trouble. Other system requirements will be a keyboard and a mouse. System requirements will be updated as the project progresses and the team begins to find out specifics on how much memory and how fast the computers will need to be in order to smoothly run the game.


    How do we adapt the manual system?

    The Search Tables, Combat tables, Sorcery Tables, etc. will be converted to code and the user(s) will not have to look them up, all calculations or looking up will be done automatically when called for by actions initiated by the user(s) that require the tables.

    The dice rolling will be done by a random number function when dice rolling is called for by the user(s) during the course of the game. The cardboard game pieces like cards and character units will have their physical likeness converted to images that are displayed for the user. The information and attributes contained by the pieces will be stored in classes. The information and attributes in the classes will be available and changed during game play by player actions and game events. The map itself will be represented through images and several classes will contain the information associated with the various terrains and locations on the map. The player will interact with the game and game pieces by using a keyboard and mouse to move game pieces around the map and into and out of their 'inventory' instead of physically touching and moving them.


    Are there aspects of the manual simulation that are arbitrary limits due to using paper and cardboard which we can simplify?


    We can simplify Shadow Point selection, counters (game turn, shadow points, health, ring weariness), Gollum's Side Select, Game Setup, Phase Change, Combat Differential, Secrecy of “Hidden” Units, Stacked Unit Placement


    Short Schedule and Work Distribution

    Phase 0 (Ongoing)
    Familiarize ourselves with Unicon (work together)

    Phase 1 (2 weeks)
    Individual Character Displayed (by 2 People)
    Map Display(by 2 people)
    Tables (by 1 person)
    Text Descriptions (by 1 person)
    All Images Scanned and Usable (by 1 person)

    Phase 2 (2 weeks)
    Movement (by 2 people)
    Map Properties (by 3 people)
    Character Properties (by 2 people)

    Phase 3 (2 weeks)
    Combat(by 2 people)
    Searching (by 2 people)
    Capturing (by 2 people)
    Escaping (by 1 person)
     

    Phase 4 (2 weeks)
    Ring Properties (by 1 person)
    Citadels (by 1 person)
    Winning (by 1 person)
    Event Cards (Part A) (by 2 people)
    Magic Cards (Part A) (by 2 people)

    Phase 5 (2 weeks)
    Event Cards (Part B) (by 3 people)
    Magic Cards (Part B) (by 4 people)

    Phase 6 (1 week, Ongoing)
    Maintenance + Upgrades (Together)