Game Splash Screen

After reminding players who developed this wonderful game, it is time for a flashy reminder of just what game they are about to play. This splash screen may actually come in two varieties. The very first time the game is played , we want to set the stage for the player so that they understand the premise for the game. A registry entry could be set after the game has run the first time. If this value is not set, we show an extended introduction. Otherwise, we make a short introduction and proceed directly to the game.

Game development studios with large production budgets tend to provide an extended high-quality video (often with live casts) to present the opening story for the game. Other studios with more modest budgets will produce animated videos developed through the same 3D modeling software used to build the 3D models within the game. Garage developers are typically reduced to displaying one or more static images with text as the introduction to their game. Regardless of the source of the media used, the technology to present the media is the same, the ShowSplash method we use when presenting the developer splash screen.

Usually when a longer opening is being presented, the user is not allowed to terminate the presentation before it has completed. A flag stored with the configuration data may be used to record whether this is the first time the game has been played. If this is not the first time, we could program the game to play a shorter opening or allow early termination into the next state, or both.

As with the first splash screen, we have processing time to spare while the player is enjoying the splash screen. This time can be spent loading additional resources, such as texture bitmaps, 3D model files common to all variations of the game, etc., we will need so that once the player hits the Play button there is no significant delay before the fun starts.