Challenge: Video Game Makers in the Playground

[super dark33]

For some reason i cant download it.

i hate megaupload.

can you try some outer site i can play this? skimmer is using newgrounds to host her stuff.

[dragonsamurai77]

New version: 5 more bullet patterns and a pause button (P).

Download: http://www.filedropper.com/spaceinvaders

[super dark33]

"File does not exist".

i guess downloading websites hate me.

[lesser_minion]

I could use the experience, so I'll bite.

I'm not a professional and I'm not even that experienced at coding for a hobby (and even worse at art), so don't expect any masterpieces.

Now to decide on precisely what to make and how...

[bothi73]

Dude, can we have next months be a general game making challenge? I just found, this, wish I found it earlier -.-

[super dark33]

Well, you can post whenever you want.

when this will die, we will start a contest, like iron avatarist, but on programming.

(and maybe i should start one of animation, but im not sure)

[Domochevsky]

Yah, the challenge should probably be enforced better, with each participant posting daily/weekly what they acomplished by then, either written ("did this, added that") and/or in programs.

[Ashtar]

Well here is my submission of a design document for
"Perseides! Asteroid Shower!"

Spoiler

Show

Background:
You are an astraunaut on a resupply flight to the ISS during an asteroid shower. The ISS has boosted its orbit high up to avoid a particularly bad perseides shower. Unfortunatly, your computer guidence system died to an unexpected solar flare. You will have to survive successive intense 30s to 90s rounds of asteroid showers before arriving at the ISS.

Gameplay:
A spaceship, controlled WSAD or UP-DN-L-R has to dodge successive waves of falling asteroids. Initially, they come from the top of the sceen, but gradually asteroids will start having oblique trajectories through the screen, too.
As an added difficulty, the first crash will diminish manoeuvrability of the ship, the second will cause the ship to gain a slight inertia in control, the third is fatal.
Damage is indicated to the player, either on the ship, or by red warning bars appearing around the playfield.
Rounds last 30s to 90s.
Optional: A computer indicator up top of screen indicating arrival vector of next asteroids.

Necessary graphic assets:

• Spaceship with (up-down-left-right-static) movement poses
• Optional: Damage indicator on ship asset // Damage indicator on screen
• Variety of asteroids
• Backgrouds (optional) - Possibilities, a view of earth scrolling down to give impression of velocity

Necessary sound assets:

• Music: BMG Loop
• Computer voices (Danger!Danger!, Incoming asteroid shower!, Warning!Damage!)
• Damage sounds (crash!)

Extras:

• Splash screen with New Game A (Normal) / New Game B (Hard) button
• Pause button
• High scores
• Game over screen

Iteration steps:

1. Ship on background, movement U-D-L-R with animation
2. Asteroids following vectors through screen with adjustable velocity
3. Collision detection - damage
4. Damage effects modelling
5. Background scrolling
6. Rounds
7. Sounds, BMG
8. Game over, Splash screen, New Game
9. Polish + High scores

I'm going to be doing this in flash, as a way to expand my repertoire. I already did a Tetris following Emmanuele Feronato's blog and book to learn about flash.

I hope I'll be able to put time aside to do this little project.

[lesser_minion]

To be honest, it would probably be cool if we did this in a format similar to tigsource's Assemblee competition (where the first phase has a group of artists slave away to produce a set of graphical resources, and the second has a group of devs slave away to turn those resources into a game).

Otherwise, I'm currently ruminating on a design. I might have a bit of Reality^TM to (mis)handle soon, but I'm still hoping to have something hacked together for the end of the month.

[Ashtar]

Update 1 of Perseids!

- Background image present (thank you NASA)
- Rudimentary ship present
- Up - Down - Left - Right movement of ship
- Framework in place for next steps

So basically half of point a) on my list.

Spoiler

Show

Location of flash file http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YGF9I77D

Screenshot:

[lesser_minion]

Well, I've successfully mishandled that bit of reality, but I'm no closer to actually getting this done. I'm pretty sure I do know what I want to do, however, which may be an improvement.

Art-wise, I'm hoping to scrape by as far as possible on primitives, at least this time around.

Gameplay-wise, I'm looking at an arena-esque shooter, with some similarities to Asteroids.

[dragonsamurai77]

I've made no progress since my last update, because I don't have enough ideas for bullet patterns.

[super dark33]

triangels and ponies.

[SamBurke]

I've made no progress since my last update, because I don't have enough ideas for bullet patterns.

Fireballs on impact. When it hits, it creates shockwaves. Boomerangs. Multi-shot. Flaming shot. Chain shot. Shockwave shot. Lots of great things here, man.

[bothi73]

Fireballs on impact. When it hits, it creates shockwaves. Boomerangs. Multi-shot. Flaming shot. Chain shot. Shockwave shot. Lots of great things here, man.

Easier said than done. Wait, Sam, are you making your game from scratch?

[Helanna]

Wait, how haven't I seen this yet?! I wanna join!

I'm about to start my second year of college, for the major of game design, and I've been told that it's very important to have some good examples of stuff you've made, and this sounds absolutely perfect for padding out my portfolio . . . besides, I really need the practice since I did almost nothing over the summer.

Since there's only 10 days left, maybe I'll just work on remembering how to get a movable ship on the screen . . .

[Domochevsky]

Hm, lots of spaceship usage here... so here's something you might be able to use:

The Left Hook (ship)

----


Shields



Not entirely up to snuff, ruler-wise, but might be usable to you anyway.

(Dunno if i should also make bullet/laser types. Those are usually easy enough for yourself to make.)

[lesser_minion]

I've managed to implement a ship flying around an empty screen -- it runs to about 200 lines of code, some of which is currently superfluous (for example, the ship has a collide method, even though there's nothing for it to collide with).

At some point today, I'm hoping to implement something for the player to do, figure out some sort of UI and game state management, and introduce some actual obstacles.

Since this competition started midway through July, should we think about deciding on a theme for September?

[Tyndmyr]

Heh, I also whipped up some filler art for folks to use...I'm afraid yours is much better, as my graphics skills are weak at best, but hey, coder art is better than no art.

http://travislerol.com/Graphics/Blue-starfighter.png

Sub out the Blue in the link for Green, Yellow, Red, Maroon, or Grey as desired.

Edit: A September theme sounds great(remember folks, it's always optional). Would you like to do the honors Lesser Minion?

[lesser_minion]

Edit: A September theme sounds great(remember folks, it's always optional). Would you like to do the honors Lesser Minion?

Hmm... good question. I'm pretty sure most people interpreted "space game" to mean a real-time game with pixel-based movement, so something tile-based or turn-based would make a good contrast.

However, I'm not sure what to suggest that would make that more specific.

[Tyndmyr]

Tile-based or turn-based could be a theme, sure.

As always, there's a *lot* of ways to do such a thing.

I do think I have some tile graphics laying around I could make into useful things, though.

[lesser_minion]

OK, how does "Fun with Tiles" sound as a theme then?

[super dark33]

Tiles of fun?
this could be good.

[lesser_minion]

Today's update:

As far as August's entry is concerned, I haven't really made any more progress beyond cramming everything into Fossil. I do have the start of a game state manager done, however, and I'm thinking through how best to implement the next stage (things to shoot and things to shoot at).

For September, I believe I have a concept, but I don't really want to start on it until everyone's agreed on the theme.

[Domochevsky]

Something turn/tile-based, hm? Might work, but these things tend to be fairly extensive. This will require some solid planning, unlike arcade type games.

[Ashtar]

Update 2 of Perseids!

Asteroids are present, collisions are handled.

I need to do the rounds, damage and all that. Not had much time since I did a surprise trip to Prague over the week-end.

Tile/Turn-based would be a nice game, it can cover things from chess to wesnoth to card games... But always start with something small.

[lesser_minion]

Something turn/tile-based, hm? Might work, but these things tend to be fairly extensive. This will require some solid planning, unlike arcade type games.

Well, the main objective is to release something playable -- it doesn't have to be amazing, and IMHO, there's nothing wrong with a demo or a prototype as long as a decent amount of work went into it.

While not as abundant as you might expect from the internet, free tilesets do exist. You can also make an ASCII roguelike, which falls under "fun with tiles" theme practically by definition.

[spectralphoenix]

Alright, I put together a Missile Command-style game for Microsoft Silverlight, available here. A, S, and D select from the three guns (left, center, and right, respectively,) Left click fires a missile, and R resets the board. The goal is to get as many kills as possible before all of your cities are destroyed. Remember to lead your targets by a fair bit, friendly and enemy missiles travel at the same speed.

To run, simply unzip the folder and open MissilesTestPage.html IE should already have the Silverlight plugin installed, Firefox may need to get it from Microsoft before it can be played.

I may post the source code for this later (I was teaching myself Silverlight as I went along, right now it needs some serious refactoring before it's fit for polite company.)

[Tyndmyr]

OK, how does "Fun with Tiles" sound as a theme then?

So it shall be...

I'll announce a list of successful completions at the end of the month...for next month, I'll also put out a "made progress" summary at the end of each week for those who posted things(good feedback, btw!)

Also, I'll see if I can't whip up some basic 64x64 tiles for people to use if they wish. Nothing fancy, but adequate for placeholder graphics and the like.

[Emmerask]

While more then likely I won´t be able to participate due to workload
I have some pretty good knowledge in tile/round based game programming (currently working on a more or less complete d&d boardgame for my master thesis in java).

So if anyone is in need of assistance for stuff like line of sight calculation feel free to contact me.
I´m also okayish at 3dstudio so I might be able to provide some models or rendered tiles if time permits