Via newStage.

Early on I decided to use Dave Bollinger’s Pixel Spaceships idea, though they’re really much worthy of a better game. They fit really well with my initial ideas for the game. I intended to choose “large” integers for their seeds, then as the enemies split I’d actually divide the seed and use the results in the new spawns. Ran out of time, though. By the way, the player’s ship has a seed of Integer.MAX_VALUE, which might suggest a storyline in future uses of them.

Game play is very simple. Shooting the enemies causes them to split, increasing the number on the screen They each come equipped with a laser that obviously should be avoided. Controls are the classic mouse/keyboard combination. The game is a score run, you’ve got 2 minutes to get as many points as possible. The number of active enemies acts as a score multiplier, while getting hit by a laser deducts a penalty.

Some things were left out due to a lack of time. I broke a cardinal rule by not including some warning in advance of the lasers. A classic “dim” precursor would have been perfect. I also would have liked some interruption of the lasers, either an on/off cycle, or better yet having the laser blocked by enemies. Other things should have been included as well, such as an indication of a laser hit on your ship, and better “exploding apart” of enemies when they split.

Overall I’m very pleased with the physics engine, and how easily it was integrated into some of my own libraries. A short learning curve was an easy trade for a fast and robust collision detection scheme. Using more traditional ship movement (no drift) also worked well with the natural movement of the other objects. There’s definitely more that can be done here, as the game allows you to bump into the enemies and bounce them around.

This was also a test run for an early version of my new OSGi based game framework. I was very happy with how fast I put together something playable and distributable. It made rapid prototyping (at least for me) very easy. All told I was able to create Demi’bot v0.1 in about 10 hours.

I also can’t say enough about how much can be learned by rapid prototyping and throwing something together for a mini-competition like this. There were only 3 entries this session, but the level of feedback 5parrowhawk and kmiller provided makes it a very worthwhile experience. Thanks also, of course, to motorherp for Shmup-Dev and putting this together.

Download here.

Like my own entry, Laser Maze makes use of the Box2D physics engine. It’s safe to say it makes better use of it as well, including lasers that are interrupted by objects and barriers in the playing field. It suffers a little, though, from “physics engine” controls. It’s a matter of taste, I know, but getting the movement right is hard. Too much inertia, likely due to utilizing the application of forces and impulses to the ship via Box2D.

You start off protecting a group of “circles” in the center of the arena, while enemy ships come in and attempt to destroy them. Keep them around, as they act as a convenient target taking heat off of your own ship. An added bonus of the physics engine is the ability to herd the circles into a tighter area, or behind a barrier. Always nice having some emergent behaviour.

It’s also cool from a development point of view to check out the XML files that come with the distribution. They’re used to describe many of the games features, including the level design. Reverse engineering them might lead to interesting levels (or even games?) as happened with Crayon Physics.

Nice work in these rapid prototyping sessions by kmiller again.

See also: Galaga has a Posse.

The game makes nice use of the Session’s theme. Various enemy satellite’s are stationed around the arena, with different colours having different firing and tracking sequences. Your ship’s sword, a close-in weapon, is an interesting counter the the enemys’ long-distance lasers.

The game can be downloaded with either keyboard/mouse controls or dual-stick support. Apparently dual-stick is better, but I still think the control scheme needs to be re-worked. Your sword only deals damage when swung, not when you fly by with it held static, nor when you stab with it. It’s fairly difficult to swing by moving the right stick around in a circle.

Despite the trouble with the controls, I like the game quite a bit. With some more work it could prove to be quite fun with some challenging puzzles in the different levels. Nice, subtle graphics too.

Aside from a few dodgy textures, the design and pixels in the game are great. The enemy design is first rate, showing off an attention to detail that the rest of the game shares. The 3rd level is especially well designed, a little like this theme from the way back machine.

‘Z‘ to shoot, and ‘X‘ for a limited shield. You’ll need to use it to reflect the very annoying seeker lasers. Enough of playing the trial, though, I’m going to find a place to order this.

For the sake of intellectual curiosity I like shmups created for odd and obscure media. This is just such a case, as the game is played in the web site’s favicon, enabled with Javascript and DHTML. That’s right, a shmup animated and played in the icon up in your browser’s tab or address bar.

Thanks to mofobaru for the link.

‘Z‘ is for shooting a nice, wide spray of bullets. ‘X‘ is for a bomb that allows you to convert bullets to medals and collect them (collect enough and gain a life and another bomb). ‘C‘ sacrifices a life, but puts you into some kind of fast, high scoring mode.

The game suffers a bit due to it’s simple but unforgiving at times bullet patterns. It would benefit from the “kill the source of the bullet and it becomes a medal” effect. Though I might be missing some key features (usually the case). Via newStage.

*Warning! Warning! Sarcasmotron Approaching!