Just a quick note to mention the new web design here at interactivepulp.com. A lot of stuff was added in the last three months (like pulpgames.net, this blog, and PulpCore) and the site needed a refresh to reflect it.

On a completely different topic, I’m seeing quite a bit of searches like “Milpa tips” and “Milpa hints” showing up in the server logs. So there is a thirst out there - any Milpa experts out there wanna share their skillz? After all, you all are better at the game than I am. Write a blog about it and I’ll link to it!

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.

The engine used to create Milpa - known as PulpCore - is today available as free open source. PulpCore is a 2D rendering and animation framework for the Java plug-in.

I didn’t really plan on creating a 2D framework - it just sort of happened gradually over a few years. It recently came to the point where I wanted to let others take a look at it and use it for their own games.

Read more about the goals and features at the Google Code PulpCore page, and see examples and API documentation at the PulpCore page here at Interactive Pulp.