Patent ID: 8641523

Claim:
A game apparatus which displays, on a display device, a game screen obtained by perspectively transforming, onto a virtual screen, a virtual three-dimensional space in which a plurality of characters exist, from a viewpoint of a virtual camera, the apparatus comprising: a character specifying system that specifies a character selected from among the plurality of characters in accordance with an operation of a player; a virtual camera controller that controls a direction of a visual axis so that the direction of the visual axis becomes a direction having a predetermined relationship to a direction in which the character specified by the character specifying system faces, with a specific position which relates to the specified character as a reference point, and that controls a position of a visual point so that a distance between the specified character and the visual point becomes a predetermined distance; a perspective transformer that perspectively transforms, onto the virtual screen, the virtual three-dimensional space from the viewpoint of the virtual camera, in which the position of the visual point and the direction of the visual axis have been fixed by the virtual camera controller, and generates two-dimensional images to be displayed on a screen of the display device; and a display controller that displays the two-dimensional images generated by the perspective transformer on the display device, wherein the virtual camera controller comprises: a parallel movement system that, when a new character is specified by the character specifying system, moves the position of the visual point in a straight line, based on the position of the previously specified character and the position of the newly specified character, so that a specific position which relates to the newly specified character becomes the reference point, while maintaining the direction of the visual axis in a direction having the predetermined relationship to a direction of the previously specified character; and a circular movement system that, after the position of the visual point is moved by the parallel movement system so that the specific position which relates to the newly specified character becomes the reference point, circularly moves the position of the visual point so that the direction of the visual axis becomes a back to front direction of the newly specified character, while maintaining the specific position which relates to the newly specified character as the reference point.