Gender issues

The game should be more or less gender neutral. Because there are things that address girls and there are items that address boys.

Neutral:
it’s fantasy and its also very curious,
there is a bit of humour,
there are also varied transports (the Kunsthaus beams itself in the certain town, ships in Venice)

Girls might like:

• the start of the game. It’s a kind of a puzzle game, where the player has to match the names of the artists with the buildings and the painting.
• It’s quite adventuresome.
• Girls can have a look at the different pictures in the museum.
• The player has different problems to solve
• and it’s quite fun to play.

Boys might like:

• they have to win against the securities,
• it has a scary aspect, stealing sth. in a dark night
• it’s quite very violent when the Kunsthaus nozzles its enemies down.
  
  
  There are more features that appeal to girls. It is more for girls than for boys
  
  

Development Requirements

Game engine

Nebula Device

The leading Open Source 3D game and visualisation engine used in dozens of commercial games and professional visualisation applications released worldwide.

Cost

OpenSource, It’s free !

Features

- Graphic Subsystem

Complete rewrite for DX9
Full support for DX7 and DX9 hardware
D3DXEffects (.fx files)
D3D´s HLSL (High Level Shader Language)

- Audio Subsystem

Hundreds of sound sources in a 3d environment
Static and streamed sounds
Simple usage

- Special Effects

Particle System for smoke, fire, sparkles and more
Moving Trees
Shaders for grass, water, glass, metal and more
Fog
Bumpmaps
Realtime Shadows
Prerendered Lightmaps
HDR Rendering

Rendering

High dynamic range rendering (HDRR or HDR Rendering), also known as high dynamic range lighting, is the rendering of 3D computer graphics scenes by using lighting calculations done in a larger dynamic range. Video games and computer generated movies greatly benefit from this as it creates far more realistic scenes than with the previous lighting model (dubbed low dynamic range lighting or standard lighting).

We choose HDR Rendering, because of the better light effects as you can see on the pictures above. Also the shadows have a very clear and dignified outlines, as we want them to look like.

Tone Mapping

Tone mapping, in the context of graphics rendering, is a technique used to map colors from high dynamic range (in which lighting calculations are performed) to low dynamic range that matches the capabilities of a computer display device. Typically, the mapping is non-linear - it preserves enough range for dark colors and gradually limits the dynamic range for bright colors. This technique often produces visually appealing images with good overall detail and contrast. Various tone mapping operators exist, ranging from simple real time methods used in computer games to more sophisticated techniques that attempt to imitate the perceptual response of the human visual system.

Support

Support Resources for this project

This project maintains a number of support resources on SourceForge.net. To help ensure your issue is handled in a timely manner, the nebuladevice project has specified that they prefer for their issues to be reported via the nebuladevice-discuss Mailing List.

Instructions: You may contact the nebuladevice project by sending email to the nebuladevice-discuss mailing list at nebuladevice-discuss@lists.sourceforge.net -- Most projects encourage you to read through existing mailing list posts (all posts to the mailing list are archived in a web-accessible mailing list archive system) to ensure your issue has not already been reported; you may read through posts directly or use the Search box in the left navbar to search through posts based on a keyword or error message.

The following resources are active for the nebuladevice project.

Mailing list: nebuladevice-cvs (Description: Automatic list for CVS changes.); [Archive] - this mailing list was created by the project
Mailing list: nebuladevice-discuss (Description: Nebula Device related discussion.); [Archive] - this mailing list was created by the project

Camera Control

Our game is a first person shooter, so you have a first person view. You are able to look around and see the world through the eyes of the Grazer Kunsthaus.

Sounds

flup - when the Kunsthaus shoots the bubble
Blubb - when the enemy is bubbled
Slurp - when the Kunsthaus eats the wobble
Emotions of the Kunsthaus like “Juhu”, “Jippie”, “That was easy!” (After the successful ending of a mission)
Oh nooo! - If he failures
Tap Tap Tap – while walking

Music for the tutorial level – coming soon
Background music – when it’s thrilling
Voices of friends, guards,
Weather (rain, thunder)
Ambient noise, scrooping doors, keys, ring tones of mobile phones,
Ambience of cities / flowing water in Venice, cars, birds,
Ticking clock – if he has only a short time to solve a problem
…

Game data

The game data will be stored in a “savegames” folder on your hard drive. There are some plotpoints in the game where it will save the actual game progress automatically, so if you die your data won’t be lost. There won’t be any database functionality because the game is single player only so it wouldn’t be necessary to exchange data.

Software/Development requirements

For the game a mp3 codec will be needed to play all the sound files and in game music. We choose the lame mp3 codec which is free for use.
A DIVX codec will also be necessary for the story videos which are not in game sequences but rendered sequences.

Storyboard Pt. I

self explanatory

Tutorial Sketch

Thats the very first prototype of the tutorial's gamedesign. To be updated...

Start screen

Screen design of the start screen.

Here you can choose if you want to start a new game, load a game, change settings, watch videos of important sequences, or exit the game.

the show must go on

Freakshow

no comment ...

game elements

Fantasy:
The character, Blubby (Kunsthaus Graz) invokes the interest. You are acting as a blue building made of glass panels. This provides you a new view of the world and it’s your task to visit other museums to steal art. (sth. You mustn’t do in your real life).

Curiosity:
During the game there will be unexpected events like:
• The picture you have to steal is not at the original place. Maybe it’s in another museum, restoration (then you have to come back later) or another thief was faster than you. (Then you see on the map where the thief is at the moment. You have to follow him and get back the picture.)
• The artwork is locked in a safe. (You have to find the safe and the correct number by listening to the sounds of the lock when you try to get in. Or you have to find another way.)
• After the burglary, when you want to leave the museum, you realize that you were filmed by the security-cam. You have to find the security room and delete the tape.
• You forgot about the time shift and you are too early at the meeting point. You have to wait some time by walking around in the city.

Challenge:
Your knowledge increases during playing the game. The level of difficulty rises from level to level. The pieces of art are on the one hand harder to find and better guarded, on the other hand less famous. Our game is developed for teens at the age from 14 – 18 years. (The artworks are adapted to the knowledge of the target group. E. g. what the children learn in their history and art lessons.)

Control:
The player decides which picture he wants to steal first. This choice selects the town and the museums where the mission takes place. In the levels you are able to move around without any constraints like in your own home loft. Depending on the currant situation you can decide if you run away or “bubble in” your enemy.

Learning outcomes & instructional content

The main learning target should be about art history, especially about the most famous artist and their work. They have influenced or even created the whole art scenery in their lifetime so they were also important pieces of the epochs. During the game the player sees a lot of museums, so they are able to identify them in reality. As a result they also learn about different kinds of architecture and architects.
Map reading will also be a learning outcome of the game.

For example:

When you are at the museum you are able to have a look at all the paintings and pictures, which are represented. When you are in front of them, you get the information about artist, title, period, technique …

map of the galleria dell accademia

Room 1 has works by the earliest recorded Venetian painters, including Paol Veneziano and Lorenzo Veneziano.

Lorenzo Veneziano

Paolo Veneziano

Moving to Room 2, we encounter works from late 15th and early 16th centuries, including pieces by Giovanni Bellini, and Carpaccio’s Crucifixion and Glorification of the Ten Thousand Martyrs of Mount Ararat.

Giovanni Bellini Madonna degli Alberetti

Giovanni Bellini Pala di san giobbe

Room 3, 4 and 5 have a selection of works from the early Renaissance in Venice; Giogione’s Tempest; series of Madonnas by Giovanni Bellini and Mantegna’s St George.

Giovanni Bellini, Madonna

Andrea Mantegna, St. George

Giorgione, The Tempest

Room 6 includes The Creation of the Animals by Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti) and John the Baptist by Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), while

Tizian, John the Baptist

Tintoretto, The creation of the animals

Room 7 includes Young Man in His Study by Lorenzo Lotto.

Lorenzo Lotto, Young Man in His Study

Rooms 8 and 9 focus on the 16th century, while

Room 10 has Paolo Veronese’s Christ in the House of Levi. Works by Tintoretto, including The Thief of the Body of St Mark, St Marks Saves a Saracen and St Mark Rescues a Slave.

Paolo Veronese, Christ in the House of Levi

Tintoretto, St Mark Rescues a Slave

Tintoretto, St Marks Saves a Saracen

Room 11 includes works by Giambattista Tiepolo include The Translation of the Holy House of Loreto and Tintoretto’s Madonna dei Tesorieri.

Tiepolo, The miracle of the holy house of loreto

Room 12 -15: You pass on through more works from the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, with high points being Alvise Vivarini’s Santa Chiara, Giovanni Bellini’s series of triptychs and brother Gentile Bellini’s Blessed Lorenzo Giustinian.

In Room 16 you'll find the piece of art you have to steal.

Leonardo da Vinci,
The Vitruvian Man

Alvise Vivarini, Santa Chiara (Detail)

Gentile Bellini’s Blessed Lorenzo Giustinian

Into Room 20 and we find the marvellous Cure of a Lunatic and the Story of St Ursula (a complete cycle of works) by Carpaccio. Gentile Bellini is represented by Recovery of the Relic from the Canale di San Lorenzo and then Procession of the relic in the Piazza.

Carpaccio, The Story of St. Ursula

Gentile Bellini, Procession of the relic in the Piazza

Room 24 houses Titian’s Presentation of the Virgin, and a triptych by Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni d’Alemagna.

Titian, Presentation of the Virgin

source: http://www.tickitaly.com/galleries/venice-academy.php

http://web.tiscalinet.it/wwwart/accademia/english/ind_engl.htm