Space Battle: Day 1+1

A late start, but...

My Plan

This weeks plan is for me to build a top-down shooter like of line the old WWII flight shooter 1942. Or Lessmilk's Pixel War. I've build something similar for the GISHWHES hunt last year, so this go around I'm looking to improve/expand what I know, and try lots of new things. Here is my Laundry list:

• Figure out sine whatever to add wobble/patterns of flight for the enemies.
• Energy bars/Health bars.
• Health/Energy pickups + sound
• Enemy ships.
• Enemy fire and sound.
• explosion sound/animation/sound.
• High Score list.

It's ambitious, but I have hope. I'm also off to kind of late start, but I feel comfortable. That was last weeks failing so I may crank it up for the remaining days.

My Goal

There is a lot of stuff on that list there, My goal this week is to get it playable first, make it pretty second. The sine stuff is completely new to me. Same with Health/Power bars. The rest (save the top score screen) can be extrapolated from earlier experiences, and implemented easily

What I Did?

Today in 2 hours of work  I've got controls, player limits, enemy, and enemy fire all cleared up. I've included a secondary fire mode with limited energy (see incident variable). Basically the simple laser blaster turns in to a fountain of lasers for 3 or so seconds. I've got the normal ROF for player, and enemy ships in a happy spot. I've researched/watched a video I checked out a long time ago that included bits on how sine works, and more importantly I've gotten some formula's and wording that should allow for some challenging game play. If  you are curious I learned a ton watching the videos that a were posted on ureddit lecture here.

Once I have some basic patterns in place I can blast through a good play tests, and see what needs to be changed. This time I'm going to try to make graphics the thing I'm trying to slam out at 10pm Sunday.

What I Got Wrong

Nothing really. Pretty strait forward stuff, I did have some glitchy laser spawn action, but once I switched the order of operation It was cleared up.

Thanks for reading guys. I'm going to try to have a decently playable alpha by tomorrow night. Good times for sure!

360 Dodge Ball: Day 3

Summary

Day 3 complete. With the basics in place by end of day 2 I'm now able to focus on refining, and tweaking. I've tightened up the end game menu. I've got a system in place to ramp up the difficulty so the player is not immediately accosted by balls. I've put in some player rotation making it more challenging to dodge balls. I've added sound, and gave some simple graphics to look at. I have absolutely no experience with pixel art. My GISHWHES project's art was done by a friend or pulled from the internet as license free goodies.

Another unforeseen bonus of this project is I'm getting in to more area's I'm not comfortable with (This blog was the first one). The art is the second piece that is completely foreign. The sound was unexpected, never thought to add sound. There is a neat site called Bfxr.net that lets you build your own sounds. Thankfully it provides a range of pre-defined 16(?)-sounds that you can adjust, just go to the site, and hit the "Explosion" button a couple times, you will get a new explosion every time. It's perfect for my GAW challenge, and I'm sure I will hit it up as the weeks pass.

Nothing stressful today, just lots of cleanup, and I was never really stumped with what I wanted to do.

I'd love to tweak, add stuff, and experiment now that I at least have a working game. Can the player catch the ball, block with the held ball like my games namesake? Should I include ball collision for the ones being thrown? Dodge ball was a fun chaotic experience as a kid. Part of me wants to make further tweaks to character rotation. I want to include a reference to the player's previous score, Flappy Bird style. I think the toughness curve is a little too exponential, that might change as well.

I've heard that the GAW's should not venture far from their intended idea. I've finished early, so maybe I should experiment.

Play it here. Leave a comment, let me know what you think!