For my final project in school (Maturaarbeit) I decided to develop a Computergame. I have started developing games about two years earlier and it really fascinated me as a hobby. Thus the decision was an easy one.

GENERAL IDEA
The general idea for the game was to combine a strategy game with a first person shooter. The game is set in 2042 right after the Antarctic Treaty ran out and resource exploration and mining is now legal and possible on the southern most continent. The penguins mounted their defences to fend for their home. The player is given the command over their armies.
The player can choose between playing in a strategy mode or a 'First person' mode. The main focus is set on the strategy mode, which therefore also is the default setting. The player can spawn up to five units consisting of up to 50 penguins in different locations on the map. A level is completed as soon as all humans are dead.

LEVELS
In its current form, the game has three levels. All three levels consist of the same set of game-object. The only thing that truly differs is the terrain. This allows the time needed to create new levels to be shortened by a huge factor. While creating the first level all objects had to be modelled, animated, programmed and debugged, but to create the second and third level only a terrain needed to be created, the rest could be copied and after a few tweaks in the settings (for example how many enemy-groups to spawn) the levels were ready.

The first level created was the 'Graham-Land' level. It is now 'Level 2', this has no particular reason. The
level consists of a headland and a mountain chain behind it.
The second level created was the 'South Pole' level. It was created as a tutorial level and therefore is now
'Level 1'. The tutorial is an additional script that reads a .csv file and displays the text on a label. The 'South
Pole' level is the largest of the three levels. It contains of a flat plain with some carcasses on it; in one
corner mountain dominate the landscape.
The third level created is called 'Wilkes Land' and shows an Antarctic coast with carcasses on land and ice-
bergs in the water.

HOW TO PLAY
After installation of the game it is started by double-clocking the Icon showing a penguin general. At first a dialogue window  is opened where different parameters, such as the quality and the resolution, can be set. The settings should be fine by default if not they can be changed without any problems occurring in the game. A click on the 'Play'-button in the lower-right corner starts the
game itself.
The basic aim of the game is to defeat the humans – therefore, a level is won when all humans have died, and lost if all penguins have died.
After the start-up scene by Unity3d the main-menu is loaded. By pressing the 'Play'-button the 'Level Selection' scene is loaded. Here a level can be selected on the map of Antarctica.
Once the level is loaded the Player sees one of three Antarctic landscapes. By moving the cursor around the camera can be moved in any direction, the mouse wheel can be used to zoom in on the terrain.
By clicking anywhere on the terrain, a penguin group is spawned. A freshly spawned group is automatically selected. A selected group is indicated by banners above the heads of the penguins, the colour of the banner shows the health of the penguin it belongs to.
Clicking on the terrain with a penguin group selected orders them to walk where the player clicked.
Further the battle mode, 'Distance' or 'Close', can be selected in the lower-right corner.
Clicking on a human will cause the penguins to attack him. The Penguins will also attack when one of their group is harmed by humans.
To deselect a group select an other or right-click.
To enter the first person mode double click on a penguin.
The double-clicked penguin can then be directly controlled via the 'WASD'-keys, and acts as 'commander' for the group; this means the other penguins follow him.
To shoot with the rifle left-click, for a close-combat attack right-click.
Pressing the Escape-key will exit the FPS mode and return to the standard strategy mode.

FURTHER INFORMATION
Further information, as well as a complete domestication can be found in the project manual added under 'Weitere Dateien'.

Programs
To create Penguin Control I have used a variety of programs, the three most important are described below. All programs used in the project are free to use - one of my goals for this project, was to show how much can be archived without any budget.

BLENDER
Blender is a free 3d modeling software that I used to create all the models I used in the game.
Blender is very powerful, it has a broad range of features of which I only used a small number. I used
Blender for modeling, rigging, texturing and animating all 3d models needed.
Central part of Blenders GUI is the '3d-View' where the actual modeling takes place, below that lays the 'Timeline' which is used in animation. On the left are the 'Properties' and the 'Outliner' panels, especially the
'Properties' panel is a very important tool; it is where materials, textures, modifiers and render settings are
located.
Of all the programs described here Blender is the one I have used the most. I started using it almost two
years ago, at first I only created small static scenes and rendered them as pictures. Later I begun playing
around with the internal physics engine and created small simulations videos. It was even trough Blender
that I got into game-development – for my first steps as indie-developer I have used the internal blender
game engine.

UNITY 3D
Unity3d is the game engine I used for my game. It is a very powerful and professional engine and
famous games were made using it. I started using Unity about a year ago and I have created some really
cool thing with it. Central part of Unitys GUI is the 'Scene' panel in the centre, where one sees the scene. Below that lays the 'Project' panel where all the files are accessible. On the Left side is the 'Inspector' panel where the settings of an Object can be edited.

GIMP
GIMP is an acronym for 'GNU Image Manipulation Program', as the name suggests it is a program used for creating and manipulating images. As with the other programs it is far more powerful than I would have needed for this project. I used GIMP for years but never really intensive.
For this project I used GIMP primarily for creating and editing various textures for models and sprites for the GUI.

I have worked alone for most of the project. The only thing I had to find help was when I wanted to add music to the game. I myself am not really keen on music - but a friend of mine (Flurin Clalüna) is and asked him if he would like to play the game and compose the music for it. I sent him the game, and approx. two weeks later he gave me a USB-stick with seven pieces of music I could use for the game.

Obviously my Coach, Mario Feuerstein, helped me sticking to the schedule and suggested to simplify the plan so that I could actually finish the game. Without his help I would not have been able to hand in the project in time.

Unfortunatelly it was not possible for me to create every single texture and soundeffect for the game myself. A freind, Flurin Clalüna, composed and recorded the all the music for the game. The Soundeffects and some of the textures come from various sources. A complete list of assets which I did not create myself can be found in the game under 'Main Menu' -> 'Sources'.

All sounds, graphics and pictures not to be found under 'Main Menu' -> 'Sources' were either created by Reto Flütsch or Flurin Clalüna.

I will start this text by stating, that I am not a good project manager and thus the time management for this project was more or less random.

I started out working on everything simultaneously - I started programming using placeholder meshes (eg. cubes instead of penguins), at the same time I started modelling the meshes. As soon as I had the meshes I begun texturing and animating them. The advantage of this strategy was that I could always work on something, I just felt like doing. On the downside I completely forgot about all the work I should have been doing for the formal part of the project - in the end I had to write the whole documentation in very short time and could not include any workrecords. Reconstructing on what I worked when and for how long was impossible because the whole project had a duration of more than half a year.