Early preview of spaceship duel game (CV)

[PkK]

I have done some improvements to a WIP called "Colored gravity".

 

There are two spaceships, each steered by a ColecoVision controller. At the top of the screen there are two numbers.

The upper one is energy left. Energy is lost when firing, changing color or being hit by a missile. Energy recharges while the spaceship isn't accelerating or decelerating. The other number is the reload. You can't fire or change color while it's nonzero.

There are three colors. Objects of different color attract each other.

 

Left fire button: Fire missile of your current color.

Right fire button: Try to change color.

Joystick: Accelerate / Decelerate, turn spaceship.

 

Spaceships and missiles bounce when hitting the border of the playing area.

 

The game becomes a bit slow when there are many objects on screen.

 

Philipp

 

P.S.: This is far from a complete game, but spaceships and missiles bouncing around are fun.

CG.rom.gz

Edited July 25, 2008 by PkK

[PkK]

Here's a slightly improved version. Missiles self-destruct after some time. This may sound like a minor change, but it improves playability by combatting the slowdown caused by too many objects being on the screen at a time.

 

Philipp

CG2.rom.gz

[ten-four]

Which program is used for this format ?. [.gz]

 

I tried to open it yesterday without success.

[PkK]

Which program is used for this format ?. [.gz]

 

I tried to open it yesterday without success.

 

It's gzip, but I think many compression tools like WinZIP or WinRAR can handle it too. I didn't compress it to save space, more because of AtariAge not allowing filenames ending in .rom

 

Philipp

[tjb]

Which program is used for this format ?. [.gz]

 

I tried to open it yesterday without success.

 

Give 7zip a try. It opens.gz files just fine (including the ones posted here) and it's free. I used to used WINZIP but I use 7zip for pretty much everything now.

 

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14481

 

tjb

[tjb]

The game looks good so far. What's are you developing it in?

 

tjb

[newcoleco]

ABOUT GZ

I'm using 7zip that was not associated with file extention gz in my Windows, but it's works fine with gzip files.

 

 

ABOUT ROM

 

I tried the game, and so far I have tons of questions. When I tried the game, I had memories of "Omega Race", "Combat", and also my Coleco minigame "Space Trainer".

 

My first question is : So far, what is your prediction, your plan, about this game project?

My second question is : Will it be part of a bigger game? or tons of graphics variations like "Combat"? or part of a multiple games cartridge?

My third question is : Why I can't shoot straight?

My last question for now is : What is true and wrong in this affirmation : the blue projectiles are "repulsive", green projectiles are "attractive", and red projectiles are "targetting"?

[PkK]

The game looks good so far. What's are you developing it in?

 

tjb

 

It's mostly C with some functions implemented in assembler.

 

Philipp

[PkK]

[...]

I tried the game, and so far I have tons of questions. When I tried the game, I had memories of "Omega Race", "Combat", and also my Coleco minigame "Space Trainer".

 

My first question is : So far, what is your prediction, your plan, about this game project?

It's an old project. I had the idea and wrote a prototype in september 2007. It used floating-point first and euclidian metric for distance. The speed was horrible. I switched to fixed-point and did some simplifications, but it was still too slow. However I reused some of the code for the smooth movement in SCJ3. There it got optimized (some parts rewritten in assembler, some compiler optimizations). I now looked at CG again, ported the improvements made in SCJ3 and improved the gameplay a bit (added the bouncing, the concept of energy and some minor stuff). I don't really know where the game will go from here yet. I hope to make something out of it this or next year.

So far I have a few ideas I'd like to implement next:

- Add music (no sound effects since however strage the gravity may be in the game world it's space and no one can hear you scream there)

- Make an AI opponent

My second question is : Will it be part of a bigger game? or tons of graphics variations like "Combat"? or part of a multiple games cartridge?

In it's current, incomplete and unoptimized state the ROM is about 11KB. With the improvements it's likely to grow a bit. I'll have to see how big it gets.

My third question is : Why I can't shoot straight?

The problem is that the spaceship can point in 32 directions, but there's just 8 sprites at the moment, so it looks like you're not shooting straight. The effect is made worse by the distance metric used since circles are not round but diamond shaped there. So when you shoot a projectile it's repelled by your spaceship since it's of the same color. This repulsice force is a bit stronger towards the diagonals.

My last question for now is : What is true and wrong in this affirmation : the blue projectiles are "repulsive", green projectiles are "attractive", and red projectiles are "targetting"?

There is no such differene between the colors. Objects of different color are attracted to each other, objects of the same color repel each other. So when aimed at a blue spaceship or missile red and green projectiles will function as homing missiles, while blue missiles won't hit.

 

Philipp

[ScottHuggins]

Phillip,

 

I am impressed with the 'physics' you have implemented. The control of the ship with regards to the thrust and friction is great. I think I had more fun just flying the ship around than shooting at stuff.

[PkK]

I added some eye candy and improved the speed.

CG3.rom.gz

[retroillucid]

I added some eye candy and improved the speed.

 

Very nice game!

 

I think it would make a very enjoyable game!

[Pixelboy]

It's hard to believe it took me this long to finally try this little game.

 

Physics are quite nice and smooth, which is a big plus, but I can't say it holds my interest for very long in its current state. It definately needs more in terms of game mechanics.

 

This is just a humble suggestion, but instead of ships flying around in empty space, how about having viruses and microbes fight in a microscopic playfield? The projectiles could be anti-bodies that home in on targets of a different color, but an organism could evade attacks by changing color (or even morph into a different form). This would be slightly more original than "spaceship game #4583", and perhaps other interesting gameplay mechanics could be devised around this concept, like a microbe eating others when they are weak, and then mutating/evolving into other forms of organic life. Could be fun...

 

Anyway, thanks for sharing, PkK!

[PkK]

It's hard to believe it took me this long to finally try this little game.

 

Physics are quite nice and smooth, which is a big plus, but I can't say it holds my interest for very long in its current state. It definately needs more in terms of game mechanics.

 

This is just a humble suggestion, but instead of ships flying around in empty space, how about having viruses and microbes fight in a microscopic playfield? The projectiles could be anti-bodies that home in on targets of a different color, but an organism could evade attacks by changing color (or even morph into a different form). This would be slightly more original than "spaceship game #4583", and perhaps other interesting gameplay mechanics could be devised around this concept, like a microbe eating others when they are weak, and then mutating/evolving into other forms of organic life. Could be fun...

 

Anyway, thanks for sharing, PkK!

 

I've never made spaceship game before, so fo me it would be a first, not a #4583. However I agree that there currently is not enough for a game. I'm considering making a spaceship game based on these physics with the current game becoming just one level of the game.

 

Philipp

[Pixelboy]

I've never made spaceship game before, so fo me it would be a first, not a #4583. However I agree that there currently is not enough for a game. I'm considering making a spaceship game based on these physics with the current game becoming just one level of the game.

Okay, it was just a suggestion.

[duncantoml]

Nice

[PkK]

Okay, it was just a suggestion.

 

Well, it certainly is a good game idea. I suppose it will be picked up by me or someone else later. Isn't the maker of Simcity doing a similar (at least for it's first level) project named spore?

 

Philipp

[Pixelboy]

Okay, it was just a suggestion.

Well, it certainly is a good game idea. I suppose it will be picked up by me or someone else later. Isn't the maker of Simcity doing a similar (at least for it's first level) project named spore?

Yeah, but from what little I've heard, it's turning more and more into another Duke Nukem Forever.

 

About Colored Gravity, how about making a sort of chess game out of it? Spaces in the "chess board" could be interstellar sectors, and encounters between enemy ships would be a close-up view. It would work like a simplified version of Advance Wars.

 

Just throwing ideas around.

[PkK]

Okay, it was just a suggestion.

Well, it certainly is a good game idea. I suppose it will be picked up by me or someone else later. Isn't the maker of Simcity doing a similar (at least for it's first level) project named spore?

Yeah, but from what little I've heard, it's turning more and more into another Duke Nukem Forever.

The release date is tomorrow.

[Pixelboy]

Isn't the maker of Simcity doing a similar (at least for it's first level) project named spore?

Yeah, but from what little I've heard, it's turning more and more into another Duke Nukem Forever.

The release date is tomorrow.

Wikipedia says early September, but it's a moot point. It just goes to show how little I've checked up on that game.

 

I stand corrected.

[PkK]

The attached demo shows some of the gameply items I intend to use:

 

- Player starts in empty field, other objects teleport in over time, Player wins level by surviving for some time (a bit similar to Wizard of Wor)

- Space station at fixed position that fires fast, short-lived bullets which are not affected by gravity.

 

Philipp

CG4.rom.gz

[retroillucid]

The attached demo shows some of the gameply items I intend to use:

 

- Player starts in empty field, other objects teleport in over time, Player wins level by surviving for some time (a bit similar to Wizard of Wor)

- Space station at fixed position that fires fast, short-lived bullets which are not affected by gravity.

 

Philipp

 

I like the physics in this game... very nice concept.. makes me remember Omega Race

I'm sure you'll add some backgrounds, borders or stars... it'll make a very nice looking game

Will you plan to release as a fully playable cartridge? If so, count me as a buyer!

 

Keep up your nice work Philipp !

[Pixelboy]

The attached demo shows some of the gameply items I intend to use:

 

- Player starts in empty field, other objects teleport in over time, Player wins level by surviving for some time (a bit similar to Wizard of Wor)

- Space station at fixed position that fires fast, short-lived bullets which are not affected by gravity.

 

Philipp

This game gets more interesting with each new version. Keep it up, Philipp!

[PkK]

I like the physics in this game... very nice concept.. makes me remember Omega Race

I'm sure you'll add some backgrounds, borders or stars... it'll make a very nice looking game

Will you plan to release as a fully playable cartridge? If so, count me as a buyer!

 

I hope I'll be able to make a cart-releasable game out of this. However I don't know when that will happen. Since I probably won't work on it in the next few weeks I've attached the current version.

 

Philipp

CG5.rom.gz