Design document for:

Crazy Road
Simulator of a transition the road, arcade game

All work Copyright ©2015 by KovDimaY Production 

Written by Dmytro Kovalenko
Version #1.00

August, 2015

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 Table of Contents

TITLE PAGE .........................................................................................................................................1

GAME POSITIONING .........................................................................................................................4

Description .............................................................................................................................. 4
Genre ...................................................................................................................................... 4
Platform .................................................................................................................................. 4
Player Modes........................................................................................................................... 4
Time Interval ........................................................................................................................... 4
Audience ................................................................................................................................. 4
Rating ...................................................................................................................................... 4
Purpose ................................................................................................................................... 4
Competitive Analysis .............................................................................................................. 5
jaYwalking .......................................................................................................................................5
Cross the Road.................................................................................................................................5
Alien Dash .......................................................................................................................................5
Clickxy Road ....................................................................................................................................6
Sheepish! .........................................................................................................................................6
Differentiation ......................................................................................................................... 6

GAME DESIGN.....................................................................................................................................7
Philosophy............................................................................................................................... 7
Backstory ................................................................................................................................ 7
Game World ........................................................................................................................... 8
Characters .............................................................................................................................. 9
Grandma..........................................................................................................................................9
Grandpa...........................................................................................................................................9
Mechanics/Rules ................................................................................................................... 10
Challenges ............................................................................................................................. 10
Game Balance ....................................................................................................................... 11
Points............................................................................................................................................. 11
Speed of cars.................................................................................................................................. 11

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GAME OBJECTS ................................................................................................................................ 12
Cars ....................................................................................................................................... 12
Characters ............................................................................................................................. 13
Interface ................................................................................................................................ 14

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Game Positioning
Description
This game is very simple but very fun for two players. The main goal is to reach another side
of a highway that is full of cars. Every player has his own area for moving and it is impossible to
obstruct an opponent. But this game does not have the end, players decide by themselves when
someone wins. The main fun is in a competition.

Genre
It is a simulator of a transition the road, some kind of arcade games.

Platform
Actually, I do not have any other platforms except Windows 7 (x86), so I make all my games
for Windows. I think it must run on any kind of Windows.
All packages such as XNA and .Net Frameworks are included in SetUp file.

Player modes
This game has only competitive mode for two players. But it is possible to try playing by two
characters at the same time; it will train concentration and multitasking abilities of brain.

Time interval
It is a real-time game that has only one session. Players begin to play immediately when the
app has run and finishes whenever they want. There are no lives so session is not limited.

Audience
This game will be interesting for all people who like to compete. Also, everybody can use it
to burn out some free time with fun and without difficulties and brain forcing to relieve stress
and tension.

Rating
I think this game can obtain «E10+» («Everyone 10 and
older») because there is no «Violence», «Nudity» or something
that can harm to feelings of young people. But it is possible that a
presence of some "Blood" in this game when car beats character
can cause to obtain «T» («Teen»).

Purpose
This game was created to practice all programming knowledge that I learned in a course
"Beginning Game Programming with C#" (https://class.coursera.org/gameprogramming-002).
It is the second game that is done from my own scratch. It has my ideas, my graphic, my
code, my sounds (of course pictures and sounds were downloaded from the web, but I was
searching them, I have modified them using Photoshop and sound redactors and so on, while I
get this game completely done), etc. So now you can see my first expression of learned
knowledge and creativity that I have at this moment.

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Competitive Analysis
There are a lot of similar games on the web, but most of them seem to be made by people who
do not care about quality. Because art, balance, sounds, gameplay end etc. look and feel strange
and disgusted. I have found few more or less acceptable games and it is given some analysis
below.

jaYwalking
URL: https://goo.gl/Xj2akT
It is a single player game. There 25 people on the left
side of the screen and player has to transport them to the
right side using arrows, so game is limited. When people
get under the car they die very dramatically, it looks like
this game uses some realistic physics for computing how
they are crushed. There are a lot of blood in the game,
sometimes bodies pull to pieces and fly away from the
visible area of the game. Cars in this game are moving
with random speeds on all of the traffic lanes that add
more unpredictability to this game. Also, player can find
some boosters in this game that help to achieve the goal
of this game easier. When there are no people on the left side of the road, then game is over and
statistics appears (killed/saved). Game is very cool!

Cross the Road

URL: http://igroflot.ru/race/flash_game_9698/
This game is very similar to the previous, but it has a
lot of different levels and only one character to transport
across the road. Also, there are more kinds of boosters,
which sometimes does not help player to achieve the
goal but prevent instead. Different levels have different
road configurations and different kinds of cars. This
progression gives a big interest to unlock the next level
and see from what it consists of. Very interesting game!

Alien Dash
URL: https://goo.gl/WOf5pi
In this game player has also only one person to
transport across the road and a lot of different levels.
Player has limited number of lives and seconds for every
level. All levels have the same road configurations, what
changes is speed of cars and their number. There are no
any boosters in this game and also a control of the
character is not comfortable and smooth there. One more
thing that seems strange to me is that cars disappear at
different position with the road. It looks like a bug but
not a feature.

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Clickxy Road
URL: http://egamex.ru/perehod-dorogi
This game is very hard but it makes it extremely
interesting. There are five lives to complete as many
levels as player can complete. There are two parts of
the road (land and water) with cross-moving object
on it. The main goal is to get the star on the top of
the screen. Moving of objects is not random, it is
constant and synchronous. But there are so much
objects and they move so fast that it is very hard to
react according to the situation and make appropriate moves. Also, control of the character is not
smooth, movings of it on the playing area are discrete.

Sheepish!
URL: https://goo.gl/PDcOCe
This game is the main inspirator of my “Crazy
Road”, because it is the favorite game of my mother.
She played it a lot when I was a child and I wanted to
create something similar that my mom will like too.
In “Sheepish!” like in the previous game, moving
of the character is discrete and there are two kinds of
the road: water and land. The first part is a road,
where cars run in opposite directions on every traffic
lane. The same thing happens with the water part, but
objects of the water help to move forward, unlike the
cars on the road, which kill sheep when touch it.
Speed of cars changes every level, as well as a speed
of objects of the water. The main goal of the game is
to fill all pens with a sheeps. Game has different
levels, limited lives and time for every level. Game is
extremely addictive and interesting.

Differentiation
The main difference of this game is that it is a game for two players. There no lives or levels,
this game is endless. The main cause of an interest is a competition between two players.
This game was created with only one encourager - fun. It does not have money as goal, so
developer is free to do what he want. Balance does not try to make player crazy and force to pay,
there are no annoying adverts and marketing offers. Nobody told me what and how I have to do,
it is my clear creativity, I have put my soul into this game. So I think it is main difference of this
game from commercial ones.
Also, I am very hard-working, accurate and attentive to details, so my game has very nice art,
sounds and does not have bugs and errors. My game is simple, but not boring because of well-
elaborated gameplay.

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Game Design
Philosophy
We all know that the road is a very dangerous place. More than one million people are killed
each year in car accidents. We do not mention thousands of animals, because nobody makes such
computations. It is very sadly, because the number of car accidents can be noticeably reduced, if
each road user will unquestioningly follow the rules that have been devised specifically to make
the roads safe and comfortable. Think, for example, about the crossing the road on a red light or
at an inappropriate place? The saddest thing is that even adults, conscious people do such stupid
and unnecessary actions, thus giving a horrible example to the younger generation.

This game is intended to show clearly to the children, what can happens if someone gives in
to temptation and tries to cut the distance by crossing the road with saturated traffic flow in
unequipped for this purpose place. We always think that we are quite fast and agile, able to react
in a case of danger and dodge the cars. However, this game can demonstrate that our self-
confidence cannot always prevent catastrophe.

Backstory
Once upon a time in a distant village there were a grandma and a grandpa. Their children have
already grown up a long time ago and moved abroad. The grandparents were left for themselves
to live out their last years together in peace and prosperity.
But one day a disaster happened in Grandpa's life: his favorite, worn bike was broken.
Grandpa was very upset, because he was fond of fishing, but getting to the river without his bike
was difficult and exhausting. He came to Grandma and realized that she also had sat shedding
tears. He asked: "What happened? Why are you so upset?" Grandma answered him: "My sewing
machine has broken! How am I going to live without it? Everything is lost!" They sat down and
began to cry together because of their grief.
At that moment, an owner of the biggest department store in their village was passing by and
saw how they were suffering. It was a good-hearted man. He asked the cause of their grief and
had decided to help them. "It's quite expensive to give you a bike and a sewing machine as a
present. However, I can give one of this things for those of you, who will come first to my shop
tomorrow" - and with these words he had gone away. Grandma and grandpa became happy,
because they knew that they would not have an opportunity to buy such things in the closest
future because it is very expensive.
The next day they both woke up early. Grandpa knew that grandma has dreamed about
sewing machine and vice versa, grandma knew that the bike was a dream of grandpa. It was a
great chance to prove their love once again. Grandpa did not want to give in to grandma. But he
wanted to come first and in front of the eyes of his beloved ask for a sewing machine instead of a
bike. However, grandma had had some other thoughts: she was aware that grandpa would run to
the shop to win and get a long-awaited brand new bike. Indeed, she was not used to lose. That
fact that she will lose in this race did not fit in her head. She even thought that she would give a
bicycle to grandpa after she will get it. Grandpa and grandma were preparing for the race during
the whole evening. Each of them was thinking about its goals: grandpa was thinking about his
future feat, and grandma was thinking about her honor, which cannot be tarnished.

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 Finally, the day has come. Both of the grandparents got up early, made a warm-up and set off.
Both were intelligent people and have chosen the same optimal route. Both had the same speed,
no matter how they tried to outrun each other. The only one place left that could affect the
outcome of the competition - the road. This obstacle has arisen recently in this region and the
people had not yet become accustomed to the fact that here it is impossible to pass. Here the
player will determine the winner and the loser.

Game World
The world of this game is drawn from the reality. It contains realistic cars and roads, has
preserved approximately the proportion between the characters and the vehicle. However, some
things were simplified. For example, the camera view in this game is the combined top view +
isometrics. In other words, we see the road, the lawn and the car from above, but the characters
are displayed using an isometric projection. In addition, to display the blood, the lawn, the roads
and the vehicles were used the real photographs of these objects, but the characters were drawn
in cartoon style. Thus, the game strives for a maximum realism, but at the same time, visual
design alludes to the fact that it is a funny game for children.

The visible world of this game is limited by a small segment of the six-lane road without a
specially equipped place for its transition. The player does not see anything except a green lawn
on the both sides of the road, gray asphalt and a saturated traffic flow on this road. Cars, trying to
move as fast as possible, do not pay attention to the obstacles encountered in their way. In fact, it
is only a piece of torn out of context. This story has its downside. In fact, the action takes place
in a poor country, where most of the population is below the poverty line. These people have
never seen such a good road. This road was built by the government because of the approaching
holiday (like Olympic Games for example), which will be held in their country. Building up the
new road should have a positive impact on the economic situation of the country and its
reputation among its neighbors.
More recently, at this place was a field that one needs to cross to get from the village to the
market. It was the shortest way. Now people have to go very far to the west to cross the road and
the transitions are very far apart. It is not surprisingly that many of the villagers ignore the traffic
rules and cross the road where they used to do it for many years. However, because of the
saturated traffic on the road, the accidents are happen very often.

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Characters
Grandma
A long time ago, grandma was the most beautiful girl in the
whole village. She was tall and slender, had a thin waist and long
legs. She had beautiful black hair up to the waist, brown eyes and
a wide white smile that always shone on her beautiful face.
Grandma was very intelligent and hardworking. She was
studying a lot, always helped her parents with the housework.
Grandmother's family had a huge household and it took a lot of
time to maintaining it. Grandma was the oldest child in the family
and the main assistant for her parents, so she has accustomed from
her childhood to do all the best to give a good example for her
brothers and sisters.
Eyes had been hiding behind thick glasses for a long time
already, but the same smile still is shining on her face. This smile is able to cheer up the most
frustrated man on the planet. Grandma is still cheerful and has hard-working spirit, and she still
likes to be the best one in everything she is trying to do.

Grandpa
Grandpa always had a big heart. It can be seen not only in his wide smile and in kind eyes, but
also in his actions. He had many friends when he was a child and all of them knew that in any
trouble they could rely on their hero. Grandpa never let to copy his homework, but instead of it,
he helped to understand all important things that were needed to have this homework
accomplished, even if to let them copy his work was much easier and faster. He loved animals
and did not allow anyone to offend them. All those things were because of the fact that grandpa
was by nature a very strong man, tall and muscular. He loved to ride a motorbike and sometimes
took children to ride with him. He could disperse up to the very high speed and get to the most
remote villages. At the same time even a small child was not afraid to sit with him on the
motorbike, because everybody knew that he was a very good rider and they can trust him.
Grandpa always loved fishing, rivers and ponds. He could
spend the whole day sitting with a fishing rod in his hands and he
did not get tired of this. He had a very good reaction as well as
very good intuition, so everybody in the village knew that he
would return with a plenty of fish, if he would go on a fishing trip.
He helped his friends with the fish lots of times when they for
some reason did not have enough food to eat.
All the girls was in love with grandpa and dreamed to
become his bride, but his heart was belonged only one girl - to the
grandma. He loved her very much and had never thought about
other women. Now, many years later, his muscles become much
weaker, but his love to his grandma is still strong. As always, he is
ready for anything to make her happy.

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Mechanics / Rules
• The game is designed for two players. The type of interaction between them is a
competition. At the same time, the player cannot effect on the game of his opponent.
• The game begins after the countdown: 3, 2, 1. The round is finished when one of the players
moved his character (Grandma or Grandpa) on the lawn on the other side of the road. During the
game cars are moving on the road and insignificant contact a car with a character leads to
instantaneous death of a character.
• In case of death, player appears on the starting position again and can start his crossing
immediately, but the game still is going on. The opponent gets bonus points for the death of
another player.
• If the player achieving the goal (if his character crossed the road and stepped on the lawn),
he gets many bonus points, the round restarts and both players appear at the initial position.
• Movements of the characters are making with the keyboard. For manage the game it is
necessary only 4 buttons for move in one of four directions: up, down, left, right.
• The window is divided into two equal parts - each one for one player. It is impossible to
cross the red line in the center and move to the opponent side of the screen.

Below can be seen a table of the buttons for controlling the characters.
Action Player 1 (Grandpa) Player 2 (Grandma)
Move Up W 
Move Down S 
Move Left A 
Move Right D 

Challenges
The main difficulty of this game is not to cross the road and stay alive, but to do it faster than
the opponent. At the same time, you cannot effect on the movements of your opponent, so it is
necessary to be in a hurry. The movements of the cars are generated in such way that both of the
players are in the same conditions. However, sometimes some part of the road has different
complexity for the different players. For example, the first half of the way for the first player
(Grandpa) is more difficult than the second, because the cars suddenly appear and it is difficult to
predict their movements in advance. However, after making a half of his way, grandpa can easily
see approaching cars and he has certain flexibility in his movements. The second player
(Grandma) has the opposite situation: the first half of the way for her is simpler, because the
approaching cars can be seeing from afar. A risky part begins after crossing a mid-path, because
the cars appear more suddenly.
Such roles can sometimes cause some dissatisfaction of the players, because there exist a
feeling that the balance is broken, but in fact, both players have an equal chances of winning in a
far perspective.

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Game balance
All values that are used in this game were generated by my own feelings, by multiple
playtests and by a feedback from my friends who tried to play it on the first stages of
development.

Points
It is really simple point system in this game. There are only two situations in the game, where
number of points changes:
 when player achieves a destination point (other side of the road), he/she obtains one
hundred points; points of an opponent do not change.
 when player dies, an opponent obtains ten points; points of the player do not change.

Let's demonstrate it through the table below.

Event Points of the player Points of the opponent

Player gets to the other side +100 points ---
Player dies --- +10 points

This system was developed to make a life of players more valuable. But numbers were chosen
this way to keep a crossing of the road as the main goal. So now, to die 10 times in a row is the
same as your opponent crossed the road one time.

Speed of cars
Speed of the cars depends on the traffic lane on which they are moving. There are six lanes in
total: three upper ones are for cars that are moving to the left and three lower ones are for cars
that are moving to the right (classical right-hand traffic). Speed is given in pixels per tick of the
program and pixels per second. It is known, that in environment that I am using to create this
game (Visual C# + XNA 4.0 Framework) there 60 ticks in one second.
Here are the speeds on all lanes beginning from the top one:

Number of lane Direction Speed (ppt) Speed (pps)

Lane one Left 7 420
Lane two Left 5 300
Lane three Left 3 180
Lane four Right 3 180
Lane five Right 5 300
Lane six Right 7 420

In real world the situation differs a little bit from one described above. On the real
right-hand road cars that move slower has to be as much right as it is possible. But in this
game it was chosen to use such distribution to make the game more playable. It is much
harder to control character in the middle of the road because all around is surrounded by
cars. So it makes sense to have a speed in the center of the road smaller than on the sides.

PS: Speed of the characters in this game is 2 ppt or 120 pps.

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Game Objects
Cars
I use pictures of real cars with top view of them. There are only four different pictures in this
game. They are free to use and were downloaded from Google. But after downloading, pictures
were decreased in their size and some of them were repainted in different colors to make more
variety of cars on the road. So in the end, there are 10 different cars, which are randomly
generated and appear on the road during a game.
All those cars can be seen in the table below.

File Name Picture File Name Picture

Car_Right1 Car_Left1

Car_Right2 Car_Left2

Car_Right3 Car_Left3

Car_Right4 Car_Left4

Car_Right5 Car_Left5

Car_Right6 Car_Left6

Car_Right7 Car_Left7

Car_Right8 Car_Left8

Car_Right9 Car_Left9

Car_Right10 Car_Left10

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 It is not appropriate to use common type of the collision rectangles because of different types
of perspectives of the cars, road and characters. Also, side mirrors
add some problem to the situation. So after some experiments I
decided to decrease collision rectangles of the cars so that it really
seems that car hit characters when they lose their life.
Approximate collision rectangle connected to the car in the game
you can see on the picture to the right.
There is also some feature of cars that I have found right after the release of the game. It lies
in the fact that the pictures of cabriolets without roofs were taken without drivers and it looks
strange, because one can see that the car is empty, no one controls it, but it runs on the road.
However, after discussing with friends and acquaintances that have played the game, it was
decided to stay with these cars, because at least it adds fun to the game.

Characters
This is the first game where I have used how
sprite animations. The set of free sprite-lists were
taken as an art for the main characters from, for
example, here: https://goo.gl/2QJNO. This allowed
reviving the game very much.
Player's movements are possible to make in one
of the four possible directions (up, down, right,
left). However, the movements on the diagonal are
not possible. This is partly because the sprite-list
has only four body position, but part of it is also
because I have learned only this kind of technique,
which allows move only one direction while
characters are controlled using the keyboard. Such
a type of control does not make any discomfort; it can be considered as a specific feature of the
game.
We should also say a couple of words about sounds of the game. The background music is
formed by two tracks: one of them is a slow relaxing melody and another one is sounds of noise
of busy traffic on the road. Overall, it creates a relaxed and positive atmosphere. On the other
hand, the sounds of the dying screams of the grandpa and the grandma make very good contrast
with the atmosphere of the game. In this case, it shows clearly how unexpectedly a misfortune
can happen on the road and how horrible it can be. Two different screams were used: one for the
grandpa and one for the grandma. Both tracks are screams of horror with male and female voice.
They sound loud enough and cause bright emotions in any player.
Another interesting fact is that a large bloodstain remains
after the character's death in the place where the accident
occurred for three seconds. That's looks very realistic and
terrifying. This adds more contrast to the whole impression of
children's cartoon. Thus, the game clearly illustrates the fact that
it is always better to cross the road in an appropriate place.

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Interface

Interface of this game consists of:

1) Playing area of the grandpa
2) Playing area of the grandma
3) Indicator of a score of the grandpa
4) Indicator of a score of the grandma
5) Center line

The whole playing area is divided into two identical parts by red winding line. This line is
supposed to be an intricate magical powerful barrier that does not allow the characters move to
the opponent side.
Each playing area is divided into three parts, which differ from each other: the first safe zone
is the lower lawn; the second dangerous zone is the road, where it is better not to stay for a long
time; the last safety zone and a finish line is an upper lawn, which means that the player has
successfully crossed the road, and it is possible to earn points.
The indicators of the number of points are situated in the upper left part of each playing area
and they are colored in contrast of a green lawn. Initially, there were some attempts to make the
inscriptions in different colors (for example, blue for the grandpa and red for the grandma), but
in the end it was chosen to be in yellow color as the best option. The indicators are drawn in the
top layer above all other layers. Sometimes the inscriptions can cover the character's head, if they
are standing on the edge of the road next to the inscription, which creates a three-dimensional
look of the game interface.

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