Category: Game Development

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 262.25 (previous year) + 30.75 (current year) = 293 / 1000
Game Ideas: 616 (previous year) + 0 (current year) = 616 / 1000

I have been spending part of the week figuring out what I should call v1.0 of my Space Invaders clone. I want to finish it as soon as possible so that I can release it and immediately start working upon new features and variations. While I could continue to work on it, I would rather be able to point to a finished game and claim it is mine, no matter how derivative, than to continue to explain that I have not finished a game yet.

I had a friend try the game out yesterday, and there were no complaints about speed or controls. When I had first started, it was apparent that the aliens moved too fast, especially for someone who hasn’t been developing the game for hours. At the very least, I now know that I have a playable demo that people seem to have no problem picking up and playing.

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 262.25 (previous year) + 25.75 (current year) = 288 / 1000
Game Ideas: 616 (previous year) + 0 (current year) = 616 / 1000

On Thursday, I found The Ultimate Space Invaders Shrine which provided a lot of useful information about how the original game was implemented. I haven’t played the original game in a long time, and any games I do play are clones which may or may not be faithful ports. The Shrine had a tips section that gave me a lot of information about how the original game played. I know that the aliens had three different kinds of missiles, that the various aliens were worth different amounts of points, and that the aliens started at a lower point on the screen every level for 10 levels before starting over from the top.

My clone currently mimics the original in that the player can only shoot one missile at a time and the aliens can only shoot three missiles at once. I have not implemented shelters nor have I added a bonus ship flying across the top of the screen at random times. The aliens only have one type of missile, and the player’s missiles can’t hit it. All of the aliens are currently worth the same amount of points. The aliens can’t land yet, so if you manage to let them get past your ship, they will continue until the offset of the sprite hits some limit, and then the game will crash.

I’ve added HUD elements so that you can see how many points you have as well as the number of ships you have in reserve. If you pause the game, “PAUSED” shows up in the middle of the screen. If you shoot down all of the aliens, the message “PREPARE FOR THE NEXT WAVE!” is displayed. If you lose your last reserve ship, it says “GAME OVER”.

I am not sure if I want to make the game exactly the same as the original, and I was planning on doing a few things differently. I would prefer to have some originality in this game. For instance, instead of just starting the aliens lower on the screen and making them a little faster at the start of a new level, I could increase the number of missiles they fire as well as the speed. Maybe I might even let the blast radius matter, so if a missile collides with the ground, you still have to make sure that your ship is far enough away to be safe. Perhaps I might add new alien types with different abilities.

These are important design decisions, so I can’t just add them willy-nilly. I have to think about how I want this game to feel when someone else plays it. In the meantime, I am pleased with how well it is turning out.

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 262.25 (previous year) + 13.25 (current year) = 275.5 / 1000
Game Ideas: 616 (previous year) + 0 (current year) = 616 / 1000

This past week I managed to add a few more features to my Space Invaders clone. One feature is an explosion effect that occurs whenever the bullets in the game hit some object. The animation is simple as it is just a white ball that gets bigger before shrinking down again. I used a combination of the GIMP and ImageMagick to create the image.

Originally I spent some time trying to generalize an effect system. I was going to try to create an effect processor, as well as an Effect class that all effects would inherit from. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was going about this problem the wrong way. I knew I wanted an explosion effect, and I also knew that I will likely have other kinds of effects that would be handled the same way. Of course, I didn’t have a current NEED for handling generic effects, and to try to write code for a hypothetical need is what I am trying to avoid with this project.

When I attempted to write the component-based game engine, the entire project was an exercise in trying to guess future needs. I just didn’t know what was needed or how I would address it, and the entire project stagnated.

With this Space Invaders project, I am making actual progress by only implementing what I need when I need it. Maybe it is hacked together, and maybe it has things hardcoded that might be better off in a data file. I can always fix it later if it becomes an actual problem.

The other feature I added was a time delay for restoring the player’s ship. Previously if you lost a ship and the game wasn’t over, a new ship would appear instantly. In fact, it was so quick that if your ship was anywhere near the middle, it might not look like you lost it at all. As I don’t currently have anything to indicate the number of ships in reserve, you can easily get confused if the game was over and you thought your ship only got shot once. Now there is a timer that waits about three seconds before restoring the ship, and I think it makes it much easier to know that your ship was lost.

Neither one of these features actually changes the gameplay significantly, but they both go a long way towards a completed, professional quality project. It is almost as if the game without the explosion effect and the game with the explosion effect are completely different in quality. Now if I add sound effects, it will probably make a world of difference. B-)

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 262.25 (previous year) + 7.75 (current year) = 270 / 1000
Game Ideas: 616 (previous year) + 0 (current year) = 616 / 1000

I am coming up on 300 total hours, but I am not pleased at the rate I am getting there. My routine has been disrupted this past week, but I believe I did prove that I can dedicate myself to some task for many hours. If I can just focus on doing the things a game developer would do, I could make some real progress.

I’m still optimistic about this year. I just haven’t been putting forth the effort I need.