Avian Apocalypse was one of our largest group projects for the 2005/2006 year. It is an arcade game, where the aim is to control a magpie's movement with the mouse to pick up shiny objects and bring them back to the nest. The game was an experiment into a new control dynamic - namely that flapping of the wings would be determined by the player's mouse movement. The game features many levels that pose different challenges, such as dodging leaping cats or navigating past electrical hazards.

Avian Apocalypse can be played in Microsoft Windows. The game can be downloaded from here.

• Project Leader: Nico Waller
• Lead coder: Robert Merrison
• Coding, level editor: Philip Broadbent
• Art: Jimbob
• Music: Duncan Stead

The game was written in C++ using Microsoft Visual Studio express. A level editor was built especially for the game, and this can be found here.

Project Postmortem Document

• - Writing a game from scratch in C++ is no easy matter
• + Design documents are not set in stone but certainly help
• + Coding works well with a closely knit team of 1-3 people, whereas art assets can be contributed from the sidelines, but always to support the core team.
• + Sometimes people can get stuck in a rut, which can endanger the entire project. In such situations, it is important to have strong, enthusiastic leadership to pull the team together and get things moving.