Note: this article was written around December 2005 and later added to the blog during a website redesign. The game is playable online at www.nicktoonsnetwork.com.

Fire your Net Shooter at unsuspecting pests in this 3D action/adventure web game!

Capture the Newbies is an action/adventure web game designed for the Nicktoons Network.

• A kid-friendly 3D first-person shooter featuring Nicktoons characters.
• Filled with narrative content, plot twists, and surprising bosses.
• Tons of all-original graphics spanning two worlds.
• User-friendly design.
• No special browser plugins required.

Nicktoons characters and content are copyright Nicktoons Network.

Goal

The goal of the Newbies project was to create a 3D web game that is fun, kid-friendly, and featuring Nicktoons characters.

Game Design

Capture the Newbies is a first person shooter (FPS) that is immediately familiar to anyone who has played similar FPS games, like Doom or Half-Life. However, Newbies is designed for a younger audience that might not have experience with FPS games.

Newbies contains many elements of a traditional FPS. The players fires a weapon, gets powerups, and occasionally partakes in puzzle-solving. The game is driven by an underlying story, and the player must confront a few tough bosses.

Aside from minor differences, like a cartoon-style environment or a simplified health system, the main difference between Newbies and a traditional FPS is the weapon system. Instead of shooting a gun to kill bad guys, players in Newbies use a “Net Shooter” to hurl nets at unsuspecting pests - a more kid-friendly gameplay mechanic. Pests caught in a net can be “captured” by the player.

Traditional shooter games feature two types of weapon ammo: unlimited or disposable. Unlimited ammo is fired from a weapon that will never run out of projectiles to fire. Disposable ammo - bullets, rockets, bombs, etc. - are destroyed forever once fired, leaving the player to find new ammo packs in the environment. The Newbies ammo system is a different ammo type: reclaimable. Each unit of ammo is unique and reusable: after the player fires a net, the player can later reclaim the net by running into it. This creates different design challenges and ultimately allows Newbies to have a unique gameplay experience.

Interaction Design

The controls are designed to be as simple and minimal as possible. There are only two main functions: moving (arrow keys) and firing (space bar or mouse click). No other keys are necessary: doors open automatically and other objects activate when the player bumps into them (e.g., pressing a switch or talking to an in-game character). Also, weapon upgrades are permanent, so there is no key needed to switch to different weapons.

Friendly characters gradually tell the player how to interact with the game. As the game progresses, input from friendly characters is limited in order to let the player explore and discover how portions of the game work on their own.

When the game first starts, the heads-up-display is initially blank. Visual feedback in the form of status icons do not appear until they become relevant to the game.

The game involves several pages of text in order to progress the storyline. The game avoids intimidating young readers by presenting game text in large, friendly letters one paragraph at a time. Also, a “Tell me again” button is available when important text is presented to the player, allowing the player to rewind to view text again if they missed something important. Since Newbies is a web game, the mute button is always available on screen. Web games are designed for casual players, and casual players often want to quickly and immediately mute game sound because they are in a social setting (work, school, etc) or because they prefer listening to music or streaming audio without any additional sound.

Technology

The Newbies engine is Java 1.1 compatible, so virtually all of today’s desktop machines can play the game without installing a browser plug-in. Newbies also runs great on low-end machines.

The engine also contains technology not found in Java 1.1, like themed UI buttons, alpha blending, bilinear filtered scaling, animation, tweens, high-precision timers, and more.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 29th, 2007 at 12:37 am and is filed under Game Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.