BlockSteve

Final Grade: 18/20

This little game was developed during the first semester of the Computer Science and Engineering degree at UMinho (University Of Minho - Braga, Portugal). The full process of development was evaluated and established the final grade for the "Laboratórios de Informática I" subject.

The project consisted of recreating the game BlockDude (originally developed for Texas calculators) from the ground up, with the freedom to add features and completely change the graphical appearance, which was, in this case, heavily inspired by the classic game Minecraft. The objective is to use the piston blocks throughout the map to help the player navigate and reach the portal.

The game was fully developed in Haskell and consisted of 6 tasks, each with its unique purpose:

• Task 1 - Assesses if a map (meant to be played) is valid, according to determined parameters;
• Task 2 - Transforms a map from the data type "[(Peca, Coordenadas)]" to "Mapa" and vice-versa;
• Task 3 - Instance Show meant to display an output of the type "Jogo" as a string that creates a graphical representation of the current game state;
• Task 4 - Updates the current game state according to the players' movements;
• Task 5 - Graphical interface, developed with the Graphics.Gloss library, which can be found at: https://hackage.haskell.org/package/gloss;
• Task 6 - Calculates the minimum necessary player movements to complete a map. (Unfinished)

Game Images

Menu

In-game

Pause

Level Selection

Added Features

• Help Menu - Gives you all the information about the game in a glance, by simply pressing 'H' on your keyboard;
• Zoom In/Out - Allows you to easily adjust the map size by pressing '+' and '-';
• Level Selection - Allows you to select and play a specific level, taking you back to the Menu after completion;
• Pause and Restart - Easily pause or restart the level by pressing 'P' or 'R';
• Bot (Incomplete) - Make the in-game bot resolve the current level by pressing 'B', if it is unable to, it will give you a red sad face :(.

Installing and running the game

If you want to try this, you'll first need a Linux based system like macOS or Ubuntu. Depending on which, the process will be slightly different.

Haskell Platform:

Installing Haskell Platform will give you all the dependencies you need for this to work, including GHC and Cabal.

Follow the instructions for your specific system at: https://www.haskell.org/platform/

Gloss Library:

Finally, since the graphical interface of the game was developed using the Gloss library, you'll need to install it doing the following:

$ cabal update
$ cabal install gloss
$ cabal install gloss-juicy

Arch based systems:

If you're using an Arch-based distribution, like Manjaro or ArcoLinux, you may need to do some tweaks to Cabal to successfully install Gloss. Learn more here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/haskell#Cabal.

Also, make sure to additionally use the flag "--lib" when running cabal commands.

Downloading the repository:

Next up, let's clone the repository so that you have access to files by doing:

$ git clone https://github.com/sassypocoyo/blocksteve.git

Compiling:

We're all set up, all that's left to do is compile the game executable by doing:

$ cd blocksteve/src
$ ghc Tarefa5_2021li1g099.hs

And run it with:

$ ./Tarefa5_2021li1g099

You can also launch it from the file manager by opening the executable file, which is located at ~/blocksteve/src/Tarefa5_2021li1g099.

P.s: Using ESC exits the game, so always use the in-game controls to navigate.

Enjoy!

Developed by

• A100741 Diogo Matos;
• A100537 Rui Pedro Cerqueira.