Contributing to Stacker Blocks 3D

Stacker Blocks 3D is open source and the source code is freely available. It is written specifically for MS Windows 95/98/NT4 systems and uses DirectX version 5. It was written with MS Visual C++ 6 in C, primarily for something to do.

If you are a C programmer and you would like to contribute to the game then feel free to modify the source code and email the modifications to me. Please note, though, that you would be doing so under the following conditions:

• You would be acknowledged in the appropiate places (this page, the source files, ...) for your contribution.
• Your modifications must be acceptable for inclusiong in a GNU General Public License program.
• I reserve the right to modify/adapt/reject contributions as I see fit. Although I will accept most mods, I may expand on the idea or make changes to the code to implement it.

Please send and modifications in an email entitled "Stacker Blocks 3D Mod". Please include a description of what your mod does, how it does it, any bugs/potential problems that it may have introduced, any bugs it fixes, and (importantly!) which version of the source files you've been working with. Please also specify if you would like me to keep you up to date with Stacker Blocks 3D development news via email.

At the time of writing this you can email me at samj@bits.bris.ac.uk.

Design Philosophy

My aim in writing Stacker Blocks 3D was to create a game which, at the very least, is a fun and playable implementation of classic Stacker Blocks, but with fancy Direct3D graphics (largely for the sake of it). Any modifications should develop the game along those lines (i.e. a modification that turns it into Quake will be rejected!)

Development Ideas

These are ideas for some things that you might want to look at:

• Sort out the camera logic. The camera is positioned so that the entire well fits nicely into the viewing area. Unfortunately my knowledge of Direct3D means that the maths behind this is a bit ad-hoc. It works, but it's not a satisfying solution.
• Sort out the placement of block statistics. Again the code is dodgy due to my lack of Direct3D knowledge.
• More fancy FX. Note that any special FX should come with an option to disable them and should not distract the player.
• Adding a multiplayer mode. A big project, as the single player mode would have to be preserved seamlessly.
• Make it look better, while maintaining an uncluttered display.