Camp Haliburton

Author: Harry He

Project Description

A video demo of how the game is played.

Harry.ISU.Demo.mp4

For an extended deepdive into the full game and how it is played check out the expanded demo.

The application will be able to run a 2D game with keyboard input used to play the actual game and mouse input used to go through the game's menu. The game will be about the author's experiences in Scouts Canada, allowing the player to relive through them through an adventure style game. All technologies used in the game are apart of Java Standard Library, with features used like graphics and text file streaming. The challenges faced when making this game were creating animated wrapped text within speech box bounds, creating a coherent item system, and integrating animation into the actions performed in the game.

Asset Generation

Many of the assets used in this game are taken from commercially published images. As such, this game cannot be sold for commercial use as it is simply used for educational purposes. That being said, some of the assets were generated by the author himself, acting out the animations of the player that you see in the game. In the developer branch of this repository, you will find classes used by the author to pixelate and process the images in the game.

Here is an example of the asset modelling that was done to create the animations in the game.

Racket.Asset.Modelling.mov

Resources that were of great assistance in creating this program are listed below for reference for other developers

• Removing Backgrounds: https://www.remove.bg/
• Pixelating Images: https://onlineimagetools.com/pixelate-image
  • The author has found that the algorithm used in this program is superior to the simple heuristic developed by himself and would recommend others try this software if attempting to pixelate assets like he did.
• Performing Pixel Art and Refinement: https://www.piskelapp.com/p/create/sprite
• Creating Raw Images from Unpixelated Images: https://docs.google.com/drawings/

Installation and Running

1. Open the zip file of the project, inside there should be a folder called "HarryHe_ISU". Move the folder outside of the zip package.
Note: If you see a folder called _MACOSX you can ignore this.

Since the game is a java application, at least a JRE, Java Runtime Environment, is required to run the game. However, I (Harry) would recommend that the JDK, Java Development Kit, should be downloaded for ease of use.

If you do not have a JDK, follow these steps

2. Go to https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/downloads/ and download the version of the JDK that matches your operating system and your device specifics. The installer may be the easiest way to down load the JDK.

3. Once downloaded, open the installer and follow the instructions to install the JDK.

From here you have two options of running the java application

• Using the command line
• Using an IDE

Using the command line to run the application

4. To correctly format the java project for command line use, open the project folder which should be named "HarryHe_ISU", and move the folder "res" into the "src" folder. Then, you must move the file "highscore.txt" into the "src" folder.

5. Find the directory in which the HarryHe_ISU folder is found, should look similar to C:\Users\username\Desktop but will be different due to a different user name and download location. This path should not include the HarryHe_ISU folder, just the part before.

6. Open the command prompt, this can be done by searching cmd in the start window, or searching terminal on mac.

7. Change your directory to the path found before.

cd C:\Users\username\Desktop

8. Change your directory to the src folder found within the "HarryHe_ISU" folder

cd HarryHe_ISU\src

9. Compile the Main.java file to allow the game to be run

javac Main.java

10. Run the Main class file to run the project

java Main

Troubleshooting

If you see javac is not recognized as an internal or external command, here are some steps to solve your issue

Windows

1. Locate where the JDK is installed, for guidance it should look something like C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-18.0.1.1.

2. Then add upon the sub folder bin to the path, this is where the javac application is held. It should look like C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-18.0.1.1\bin.

3. In the start window search environment variable and click the Edit the system environment variables option.

4. Click on the environment variables button. Then you will find a list of your user and system variables.

5. If you do not have a Path variable under your user, you can add a new variable named PATH with the path of the JDK's bin, i.e. C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-18.0.1.1\bin.

6. If you do have a Path variable, you should edit the Path variable by adding a semicolon to the end of the pre-existing paths, then add the path of the JDK's bin. For instance the change would look like,

   "C:\Users\jack\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python39\Scripts\
   C:\Users\jack\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python39\
   %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps"
   
   to
   
   "C:\Users\jack\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python39\Scripts\
   C:\Users\jack\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python39\
   %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps; C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-18.0.1.1\bin"
   

7. Save your changes by pressing OK.

Mac

1. Locate where the JDK is installed, for guidance it should look something like /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-11.0.10.jdk/Contents/Home.

2. Add upon the subfolder bin to the path, which is where the javac application is held. It should look like /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-11.0.10.jdk/Contents/Home/bin.

3. Open the terminal, by searching terminal in the search bar.

4. Open the paths file, by running the command

   sudo nano /etc/paths
   

5. Go to the bottom of the path, then add on the path of the JDK bin.

   UW PICO 5.09                        File: /etc/paths                          
   
   /usr/local/bin
   /usr/bin
   /bin
   /usr/sbin
   /sbin
   /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-11.0.10.jdk/Contents/Home/bin
   

6. Press Control-X to save quit the file editor, and press Y to save the new path file.

7. To test, you can refresh the terminal and run the command below to see the new edited paths.

   echo $PATH
   

Using an IDE, Eclipse

If you do not have Eclipse or another IDE that can run Java, follow steps 4 - 5, otherwise you can skip to step 6.

4. Download the Eclipse installer from https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

5. Run the Eclipse installer and follow the instructions to install the Eclipse application.
Note: Select Eclipse for Java Developers since this project is a java application.

6. Open the Eclipse application.

7. Create a new Java Project and enter a name for the project.

8. Right click the project and press import.

9. Select the General option, and then the File System.

10. Select the HarryHe_ISU folder to import from, which will be in the directory in which you copied the folder to. Check off the HarryHe_ISU box to import all content within.
Note: You may need to overwrite the existing default settings, just click yes to allow the entire java application to copy over.

11. From there run Main.java as a java application or you can select the entire project and run it as a java application.

Using the Project

The project will accept mouse and keyboard input. To play the game, refer to the instructions screen to learn about keyboard controls. To control the application use the mouse and cursor as input, pressing the buttons to navigate the game.

Credits

Author: Harry He
Advisor: Ms. Wong
Game Model: Harry He

Thanks to the creative team for the idea of this game, Harry He, who came up with this idea during the summer of 2022, when trying to think of ideas for his grade 12 final project. Harry's experiences in Scouts Canada inspired him to make the game, where he wanted to share his learnings with the other students at his school. Thanks to the scouter's who inspired the game, Scouter Bryant, Scouter Hubert, Scouter Paige, Scouter Tom and Scouter John.

License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2023 Harry He

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.