The Zoom Engine

The game engine within PIE JACKERS contains several components, including:

Communication Manager

physically links multiple players and logically links autonomous gameplay objects.

Resource Manager

imports and manages a database of geometry, animation, sound, logic, physics, etc.

Physics Manager

calculates the dynamics and interactions among objects in the system.

Sound Manager

renders a dynamic 3D environment of multiple, synchronized, pitch-shifting sounds

Display Manager

organizes the visible world (3D and cartoon) and assembles the instantaneous view.

Render Engine

supports the Display Manager with pixel level rendering.

In sum, these components comprise the ZOOM Engine. All are pure Big Fun technology. They run in the Windows95 environment, and are built on the following standards:

The above Windows 95 DirectX software components are all currently distributed free by Microsoft. PCCTS is in the public domain (acknowledgement requested). The shipping version of Pie Jakkers will require no other third party licensed software

Minimum hardware requirements:

COMPUTER: IBM or compatible.

OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 95.

CPU: Pentium-75 or better.

MEMORY: 16MB RAM or more.

CD-ROM: Windows 95 compatible CD-ROM.

GRAPHICS CARD: Windows 95 DirectX-certified PCI graphics card.

SOUND CARD: Windows 95 DirectX-certified sound card.

HARD DRIVE: 20MB free space.

INPUT DEVICE: Windows 95 compatible keyboard,

Windows 95 compatible mouse,

or Windows 95 compatible joystick.

Screen resolution: 640x480

Frames per second: 22.0 FPS or better on a Pentium-133

12.5 FPS or better on a Pentium-75;

Multiplayer capability:

Up to four players may participate in a multiplayer game.

Each player chooses one of the four copilots.

Multiplayer games use Windows95 DirectPlay to establish connections and thus requires: