How to Play

You are now a software engineer!

Your goal is to complete your project and present it to the boss before time runs out.

Move with the arrow keys, and use the space bar to perform actions.

Hold shift to run, and hold tab to see what actions are available.

Along the top of the screen you will see your timer, your progress bar, and your bug count. You will also see your hunger meter and your bladder meter. There are status icons for your PC, internet connection, VM status, and build status.

The office is your main playground. On the left you will find the boss's office, the meeting room, the kitchen and the restroom. You start at your desk. Your co-workers are at their desks. The Product Manager will clarify any questions about the feature you are building. Operations (OPS) will help set up virtual machines (VMs). Talk to the Database Admin (DBA) for database related issues. The Build Engineer will help with building your project and deploying it to a VM. If you have a problem with your computer or your internet, talk to someone in IT. The other developers (DEV) will also help you. And QA will test your work.

You will progress through several game modes.

BRANCH

Start the game by creating a branch from the SVN repository.
This gives you a copy of the current iteration of production code.
Hold space at your PC to increase progress bar.

DEVELOP the Feature

Now that you have a branch to work on, you need to write code.
Hold space at your PC to increase feature progress bar.
If you get a [Merge Conflict], then you cannot continue until it is resolved.
Talk to a developer (DEV) to gain information, then hold space at your PC to resolve the conflict.
If you run into [Unclear Specs], hold space at the Product Manager (PM) to clarify.
When you get a [Broken Machine], talk to IT to get it fixed.

POST a Review

When the feature is at 100%, you can post to the Review Board (RB) for other developers to inspect it.
Hold space at your PC to increase post the review.

REVIEW

You need two reviews to get approval to commit your code.
Hold space at DEV to get a code review.
If DEV says to [Refactor], hold space at your PC to address the review.
If you run into [No Connection], talk to IT to reconnect.
If you run into [Unclear Specs], hold space at the Product Manager (PM) to clarify.
When you get a [Broken Machine], talk to IT to get it fixed.

COMMIT the Code

After you have two reviews, you can merge your code back into the main branch.
Hold space at your PC to commit the code to SVN.

BUILD the Project

Talk to the Build Engineer (BUILD) to make sure your code builds properly.

DEPLOY

Now you need to deploy the code to a Virtual Machine (VM) so it can be tested.
Talk to Operations (OPS) to get a VM, then hold space at your PC to deploy.
[Broken VM] talk to OPS.
[No Connection] talk to IT to reconnect.
[Outdated DB] talk to the Database Administrator (DBA).
[Build Failure] talk to the Build Engineer (BUILD).
[Broken Machine] talk to IT.

TESTING

Just wait for QA to test your feature.
This is a good time to refill your hunger meter or empty your bladder meter.
While QA is testing, your bug count will rise as bugs are found.
Talk to QA to explain away some of the bugs.
If you get a [MAJOR BUG], hold space at your PC to fix. You will have to deploy again.
[No Connection] talk to IT.
[VM down] talk to OPS.
[Broken Machine] talk to IT.

Feature REVIEW

Once you have a finished product, fully tested, with no bugs, you can present it to the boss.
Go in early for a better score. The review happens automatically when your sprint time reaches zero.
You can only do this once, though - so make sure you're ready!

REINTEGRATE

This is how you end the game.
If you passed your feature review, press space at your PC to reintegrate and win!

SCORING

1 point for each percentage of feature completion
-1 point for each active bug.
Ten or more bugs will fail the review.
Bonus point for each extra second remaining if your feature review is a success.

Effects

Full Hunger - Half progress speed. Have a snack in the kitchen to fix this.
Full Bladder - Slow movement (and you cannot run). Use the restroom to fix this.
Remember to wash your hands! (Hold space at the sink).
[Lunch Time] - Hunger rises to 100%

Enjoy the game :)

Screenshots

Most of the game takes place in the office...

The Menu

Basic Menu Options

Starting Position

This is where you start

Writing Code

Doing some actual work

Reviewing

Your code must be reviewed before you commit

Building

After the project builds you can deploy

Deploying

Put the build on a VM

Action Areas

These are the places that you can do stuff

Have a Snack

Gotta get that hunger meter down

The Restroom

Notice the censored bar

Success

You are a winner!

Testing

QA is testing your code

Game Over

Oops! Not good enough

The Boss

He's waiting to see your feature!

Wash Your Hands

You must do this every time you use the restroom

Getting Help

The help text is scrollable

Development

This game is a simplification of an actual job at a software company.

Of course, the real job is much MUCH harder and requires a lot of job knowledge and context switching.

If I were to make it more realistic, however, it would no longer be a game :)

Building the Office

Floor Plan

Action Areas

Added Textures

The original plan was to include an editor to allow the user to make their own office layout, but I wanted to show one story. However, as I think about it now - maybe it's not such a bad idea to add in the next version...

Adding Characters

Placeholder Sprites

Action Areas

Highlighted Areas

The characters were placed in positions that are logical for the game, and also made sense in real life.

Character Development

First Render

Smiley Sprites!

Alternate Sprites

The characters started as smiley guys. Then they got clothes. Then they were replaced with RPG characters. Finally back to smileys, but with accessories (hair, glasses, etc).

Collision Detection

Three different methods of detection were implemented

I started by checking the midpoints of the sprite. That wasn't very good because the character's head could go through the walls if the side detection point was not hit. So I switched to using two points per side (one at each endpoint). This made it so that the player had to be exactly perfect when attempting to enter a tight space. What seems like it should line up would actually block movement. So I decided to move the points a little closer to the center. The result was just right!

Writing Code

Main Game Loop

Drawing Meters

The Map Class

The main game loop is pretty standard. The screen is rendered, keyboard input is checked, timers are updated, and the AI updated the movement for NPCs.
The map is a class with a 2D array. This allows me to find the players location and easily set boundaries for simple collision detection.

Other Stuff

Flowchart

Text Strings

Sprites

Here you can see the main flowchart for the game. The text class is also shown. I put all the text into a single file for easy translation if I want to add it later.

Project Time Log

Minutes: Work

10: planning and design
20: open gl window with lwjgl, keyboard and mouse input
10: load image with slick-util
30: move image with keyboard
80: map planning, midpoint collision detection
40: fine tuning and refactoring
30: map update graphics
60: dual point collision detection
10: Improved image loading efficiency
10: Updated map graphics
80: npcs, random npc movement
40: progress bars
20: load fonts, synch with counters
15: changeable text for events and tasks
15: sprint timer
10: update progress bar graphics
20: update map checking
25: strings and map lookup
50: updated map graphics
60: tasks (branch state), hungr/bladdr counters, full bladdr state
10: bugfixes
15: task progress
10: fix over progress bug, event task saving
10: set random reviewers
50: split review states, non-pc event / task
60: map graphics updated (objects)
30: test event auto-fill
10: update NPC text
15: refactor task time enum
60: fix bug (progress stops on test actions)
60: Fix restroom,kitchen,sink to test, Show done testing text
90: updated npc graphics
10: switch player graphics mode
30: adding menu mode and selection
20: menu graphics
10: update menu graphics
20: write and add help text
15: hand wash blocking
30: fix menu time bug
15: help text covers
30: results screen graphics
20: light reinitialize to restart the game
30: scoring screen

Total
21 hrs 25 mins (1305 minutes)

Remaining Work

Add random events
Add sound effects
Add click actions to menu
Fix testing phase bug

Downloads

This game comes as an executable jar file.
It will run if you have Java and OpenGL.