SNIPER: THE REAL COST
A CSC 103 Final Game
SNIPER: THE REAL COST is a two-dimensional computer game fully coded through Processing using third-party sound, pixel art, and background image assets. The game was created as our final assignment for the CSC 103 Creative Computing class. The intent of the game was to, not only create and enjoyable sniping game that uses semi-realistic bullet drop and bullet travel time, but also hits the player with a new understanding of what the real men and women in a sniper position do; they kill.
The game currently has six scenes in all: 1) start screen, 2) mission select screen, 3) mission 1, 4) mission 2, 5) mission 3, 6) missions complete screen. Mission 1 has two enemies standing still at different distances casually whistling and turning their heads. Mission 2 has one enemy walking back and forth between a short distance. Mission 3 combines these two elements with one enemy standing on a raised platform whilst another walks back and forth between a slightly greater distance. The enemy goes away/dies if the bullet, shot by the player from the sniper on the left side of the screen, hits their head. The sniper has a seeable arc protruding form the gun. This arc helps the player approximate the bullet arc. The player then has to mentally estimate where the bullet will land, since the arc only goes halfway, the speed of the bullet, and the speed of the enemy to make sure that when they fire their bullet will impact the enemy even with everything moving all at once. The player changes the distance the bullet will travel by moving their mouse left or right. The further right their mouse, the straighter and further the bullet will travel. The up and down motion of the mouse is not used at all.
As in all things in life, there are many things that I would like to improve or add later that were not fully developed in this first edition of the game.
1. I do have a lose screen(as seen above) however the player cannot currently lose. The player has an infinite amount of tries to get through each mission till they reach the end. I meant to add an ammo counter so that the player would only get a few shots/attempts per mission. I was unsure how to complete this myself and did not allocate enough time to get help to implement this.
2. The inability to play the missions out of order. The way the code is written, the enemies must be removed in the order that the mission play out. If they are not removed in that order, then the game does not switch to each mission nor does it get to the mission accomplished screen.
3. The game's inability to reset the enemies. Once you finish all three missions and go back to the start screen you are able to go back to the first, second, or third mission through the mission select screen. However, all the enemies are gone and once you are in the mission there is no way to get out since the code changes the mission for you depending on the amount of enemies removed during the mission.
4. I wanted to implement an alert system for the enemies if the player missed a shot too close or shot an enemy near to an onlooking enemy. Once triggered, the enemy would go into an alert animation and the player would have a small window of time to make a follow-up shot to remove the alerted enemy. If the player did not shoot them in time, the player would lose the mission.
5. The last addition I would like for this game is the use of enemy classes distinguishable by certain wearable or colors present on their animations. Certain classes could be alerted faster or need multiple shots to be killed. Two ideas I had were a captain, wearing a cap to distinguish him as such, that if alerted would fail the mission instantly without any alert timer; and a heavy gunner, a distinguishable beefier frame for his body or large gun, that took two to three shots but could not be alerted due to heavy armor and lack of awareness.
I am extremely pleased with how my game turned out after many weeks of coding, office hours, help form peers, and sheer trial-and-error. What began as a simple online whiteboard sketch, taking the amazing component from modern 3D sniper games and implementing those feats of coding into 2D, turned out to be a challenging and rewarding project that I can continue to improve and share with many people. I am extremely grateful for this class and all it has taught me about computer coding. I am excited for what the future holds.
