Icarus-X
Born in the summer of 2001, this game was a triumph of teamwork and friendship.
Company name: Irate Pirate (now Inverse Cinematics).
Time taken to finish: 10 weeks.
Team size: 3 programmers, 2 artists.
Key features: Cell shading, multiplayer, high detail deformable models, 3D positional audio.
In the summer of 2001, a competition was held in the University of Abertay, Dundee, for teams of talented multimedia students to get together and create a multimedia project over the summer break. Key benefits of this included getting paid as a studio employee each week for working on the game. Also, there was the possibility of winning £200 and also getting an expenses paid trip to London to go to the ECTS. A team was formed of students from Abertays own "Computer Games Technology" course, one of which included myself. 10 weeks was the time we had to complete the project, which was a difficult challenge in its own right, but we delivered a game that not only contained an impressive array of features, but also won the competition.
Its name was Icarus-X.
In its early stages, the concept for Icarus-X was clear. The team decided
to create a game that would be like a flight simulation, but without the
keyboard overlays, and bible-thick instruction manuals. This game would have
gameplay, be easy to control and above all enjoyable. In keeping with this
theme, it was decided that the game be rendered in a cartoon style, and have a
small control set. Also, one of the key features would be the ability to play
this game over the internet, so that friends could get together and watch each
other spiral out of the sky in battle.
This competition was interesting for a few reasons. Firstly the company in charge of the whole competition, "Embreonix", decided to film each team over the entire 10 week period. Much like TV's "Big brother" a collage of memorable moments where collated into one long video for all to watch. This video put forth the message of the need for the nurturing of young multimedia talent, whilst also showing humorous moments from each team.
In the end, our team where the team that pulled together. In the 10 weeks there where no fights and no bickering, and upon the creation of an astounding business plan, and a great game, the victory was ours.
In this game I was one of the programmers. I coded the 3D positional sound system, and also created audio tracks and certain sound effects for the game. I also moved on to the game logic, such as dying and re-spawning, which proved difficult in multiplayer mode, and some collision detection. There is also a CD player built into the game, so try it by putting in an audio CD before starting up the game!
The game has been included here to try out:
Icarus-X (8.04 MB)
Also include is the three MP3 files I created as the "Soundtrack" to Icarus-X, if you really want to, you can burn the three tracks to CD and place it in your CD drive to get the full effect while playing, track one must be "DrMagnifico":
Icarus-X Music (11.3 MB)
(Warning: Unfortunately due to the 10 week time constraints, this game is not very portable. Therefore it
may require an NVidia GeForce card in order to work, and also requires DirectX 8 or
higher. You could try it with other graphics cards, but be warned.)
Essential things that need to be know are as follows:
Keys can be changed by pressing the numerical "0" key, you will have
to do this on first play.
Resolution and the option to go full screen can be found
under file -> change device.
Alternatively, to go fullscreen, alt-enter works.
To connect to multiplayer, choose the settings after
choosing your character and plane.
If you encounter any problems, such as
difficulties setting up the keys, please email me, Ill be happy to help.
Also available are these Icarus-X desktops I made up when I had a spare moment, they feature the image that can be seen at the top of this one. Enjoy!
Icarus-X Desktops (492 KB)
All files are "zipped" use an application such as WinZip to
decompress these files.