Not So Super Mario Bros.
The Assignment
Now that we have gone through the trouble of discussing the “theory” of arrays, we
might as well put them to good use in what we hope will be an interesting assignment that will
allow you to show off your programming skills.
Your chore for this programming assignment is to implement a Super Mario Bros. inspired
simulation, which should give you the opportunity to work on a non-trivial program and have
some fun at the same time.
Gameplay
Our Not So Super Mario Bros. simulation is a far cry from the original game, but the goal
remains the same – defeat Bowser and save the princess.
The game simulation is carried out in a world that consists of a fixed number of levels. Mario
must navigate the levels, encountering enemies and power ups, and collecting coins, before
engaging a boss to move onto the next level. A general outline of the program follows below.
The World
The world consists of a number of levels, L, which will be provided at runtime. To finish the
game, Mario must navigate from level 1 to level L by defeating intermediate bosses, and defeat
the final boss in level L. If Mario runs out of lives before this task is accomplished, the game is
lost.
Mario: Our Protagonist
In our simulation, Mario starts with a number of lives, V, which will be provided at runtime. Mario
also has the ability to collect coins. He starts with 0 coins. For every 20 coins collected, he earns
an extra life (and the number of coins resets to 0). At any moment, Mario is in one of 3 power
levels, PL0, PL1, and PL2. PL0 is the weakest and PL2 is the strongest. Mario can increase
power levels by coming in contact with a mushroom (a “magic” mushroom), and loses a power
level if hurt by an enemy. More on that later.
A Level
Each level in our game is represented by a NxN grid (think 2D array), with N provided at
runtime. Mario may navigate the grid by moving up, down, left, and right only. The grid wraps
horizontally and vertically (a torus). For example, if Mario is in the rightmost column and moves
right, he will wrap to the same row in the leftmost column.
Mario’s Interaction with the Environment
Mario will begin at a random location in the first level, with power PL0, and starts interacting with
the environment immediately. Once he has interacted with the current location, he moves on to
the next location by moving up, down, left, or right. The direction is chosen randomly with
uniform probability (25% each). Interactions with each position occur as follows:
If the position contains nothing, Mario moves on.
If the position contains a coin, Mario adds the coin to his wallet, and then the position
contains nothing. Mario moves on.
If the position contains a mushroom, Mario’s power level increases by 1, or stays at PL2
if he’s already in PL2. Once the mushroom is consumed, the position contains nothing,
and Mario moves on.
If the position contains a Goomba or Koopa, Mario engages per the rules of a regular
enemy, below.
If the position contains the level boss, Mario engages per the rules of a boss, below.
If Mario encounters the warp pipe, he will immediately jump to a random position in the
next level without having to beat the current level boss.
Mario’s Interaction with a Regular Enemy
When Mario encounters a regular enemy, gameplay proceeds as follows:
If the enemy is a Goomba, Mario defeats the enemy with a 80% probability, the position
becomes empty, and Mario moves on. If Mario loses (20% probability), his power level is
decreased by 1, the Goomba stays in the position, and Mario moves on. The exception
is if Mario loses while at PL0, in which case a life is lost. If Mario has another life, he
continues at the same location, with PL0. Otherwise, the simulation ends, and the game
is lost.
If the enemy is a Koopa, Mario defeats the enemy with a 65% probability, the position
becomes empty, and Mario moves on. If Mario loses (35% probability), his power level is
decreased by 1, the Koopa stays in the position, and Mario moves on. The exception is if
Mario loses while at PL0, in which case a life is lost. If Mario has another life, he
continues at the same location, with PL0. Otherwise, the simulation ends, and the game
is lost.
If Mario defeats 7 enemies on the same life, he earns another life.
Mario’s Interaction with a Boss
When Mario encounters a level boss, gameplay proceeds as follows:
Mario defeats the enemy with a 50% probability, the position becomes empty, and Mario
moves on to the next level. If Mario is in the last level, the princess is saved, the game is
won, and the simulation is over. If Mario loses (50% probability), his power level is
decreased by 2, and Mario attempts to defeat the boss again. The exception is if Mario
loses while at PL0 or PL1, in which case a life is lost. If Mario has another life, he
continues at the same location, with PL0. Otherwise, the simulation ends, and the game
is lost.
The Program
Your program will take as command line input the name of a plain text file that has the following
format:
Line # 1 is the number of levels, L (a positive integer)
Line # 2 is the dimension of the grid, N (a positive integer)
Line # 3 is the number of initial lives, V (a positive integer)
Line # 4 is the approximate percentage of the positions in each level with coins (a positive
integer)
Line # 5 is the approximate percentage of the positions in each level with nothing (a positive
integer)
Line # 6 is the approximate percentage of the positions in each level with Goombas (a positive
integer)
Line # 7 is the approximate percentage of the positions in each level with Koopas (a positive
integer)
Line # 8 is the approximate percentage of the positions in each level with mushrooms (a positive
integer)
Note that the values on line 4-8 MUST sum to 100.
Once the file is read, a world with the appropriate number of levels is constructed. Each level
should be populated using the specifications provided. In addition, a level boss should be
placed randomly, as well as a warp pipe (for all but the last level). Mario is placed at a random
position in the first level with PL0 and the simulation begins until the game is won or lost.
The output of your game is a plain text file that represents a log of every move Mario has made.
The name of the log should be provided as a command line argument.
The log should start by printing a character representation (see below) of each level, prior to
Mario being placed and interacting with the environment. There should be a newline after each
level representation.
Each subsequent line of the file should specify:
The level number
The position location of Mario (a row and column number)
The current power level of Mario before interacting with the position
The action that was taken at that position
Mario collected a coin
Mario ate a mushroom
Mario fought a Goomba and won/lost
Mario fought a Koopa and won/lost
Mario fought the level boss and won/lost
The position is empty
Mario warped
The number of lives Mario has after interacting with the position
The number of coins Mario has after interacting with the position
The direction that Mario will move next (UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT,STAY PUT)
After each line a character array representing the current level should be printed, followed by a
newline.
The last line of the file should specify whether Mario won or lost the game, and the total number
of moves it took to reach that point.
Data Structure
You shall represent your world (textually) as a 3D LxNxN array of characters. For each of the L
levels, each of the NxN grid positions are represented by the following characters:
x - nothing
m - a mushroom
c - a coin
g - a Goomba
k - a Koopa Troopa
b - the level boss
w - a warp pipe
H - stands for hero. Mario’s current position.
Rules of Engagement
You may NOT use any non-primitive data structures (eg. vectors, lists, etc) other than
arrays. Of course, to do the file processing you may use any of the standard C++ IO
classes.