Dingo – Update #1

I’ve been sitting on my hands for about a week now, but I’ve been productive the last 4 days so now it’s time for an update.

After a few nights wasted programming the “AI” for the Dingo’s (which left them pretty brain damaged) I’ve redone the code from scratch and now it’s much better. They’re bouncing around the maze just the way they should.
They now also have the ability to pick up fruit, which they do by stopping up for a moment and stomping on it, and they will (so far) randomly throw the fruit around. I still need them to aim for the player – just once in a while at least.

Colission detection works between fruits thrown by the player and the enemies, so if two pieces of fruit collide they will both be destroyed.

Things still needed;
* Player can’t die yet.
* Enemies can’t be stunned yet.
* Level completion and progression is still missing
* 90% of all current graphics still has to be redrawn.

No pictures from the game yet as it’s still mostly using temporary graphics.
One piece of graphics I’m satisfied with though, is my logo (which I made about a month ago).
The original game is by A.C.G. so I’ve made the new logo look like Ultimate Play The Game‘s logo.

All in all, it’s coming together nicely. 🙂

New remake started: Dingo

Time is flying and I’ve been sitting on my hands for a week now, not being the least productive, so I’ve just started another remake. The singlescreen arcade game “Dingo” has been in my mind for a while so that will be my third game for the competition.

I like it because it’s a small and simple funny game…and possible to do in the time I have left.
As an added bonus it’s from Ultimate Play the Game…well A.C.G. but that’s really the same thing. 😉

Here’s two screenshots, from the arcadeversion, so you know what it looks like;
(not much to show from the remake though, as I ‘ve only just started)

(click pictures to enlarge them)

Changes and new features in Space Fury.

Here’s a little update on Space Fury.

The docking procedure/upgrade in the original game works like this: between every wave you get a chance to dock and get a better ship. The original has 3 extra ships to choose from, which is ok considering there’s only 5 enemy waves. If you get shot in the original game you die but you keep your upgraded ship.

I’d originally made the remake like that as well. However when I decided to up the number of waves from 5 to 20, I also added an extra 4th ship to chose from. But suddenly the docking option became extremely intrusive – coming after every wave, so now I’ve changed it to appear only every third wave which is much better…considering there’s also 4 times the amount of levels now.

Here is a couple of pictures of the docking sequences: the left one is from the original game, the one to the right is from my version.

On sunday I had a friend over and I showed the game to him. Then he asked a question;

Him: “So, do you lose your upgraded wings if they’re hit?
Me: “Err..no. Is that a good idea?

I hadn’t occurred to me before, but after thinking about it for a few minutes I had the thought that “Hell yeah, lets have the player lose the upgrade if the wings are hit“. That was actually a pretty good idea, because it solves the problem of the upgraded ships being extremely powerful, so now you can’t just circle the centre of the screen and blast everything in sight anymore.

Oh, and I should mention that in the original game there is no collision detection (or at least only minimal detection) on the upgraded wings…bullets often pass right through, but last night I added collision detection to the upgraded wings…well, I had to if I wanted them to be destructible.

So now you’ll still die if the red part of your ship is shot, but you’ll start again with your upgraded ship (if you have it), however, if your wings are shot they will explode and disappear but you’ll stay alive.

I think it adds a bit of depth to the game…which it could use. 😀

“Exciting” Zektor and Space Fury news.

I think it’s about time I show a little from Zektor, but instead of making a crappy low-res YouTube video (which I intend to do sometime anyway) I’ve decided to release a running demo instead.

If you click here (1 MB) you can download a non-interactive demo. You won’t be able to play it, but you’ll be able to see the menu and the entire sequence of attractmode screens. That means that now you can get an idea of how it will run on your computer…and that’s much better that a low-res video, right. 😉
Exit from the menu by pressing the escape key or use any key during the attractmode to return to the menu.

I finally got the last of the important code into Space Fury last night. Important stuff like collision detection, player reset and a death sequence. What’s left now are a few resources, a bit of trivial score related code, a few bugs and most of all – fine-tuning of the gameplay. I was playing last night and I couldn’t even make it past level 3 which of course makes it stupidly difficult considering that there are 20 levels AND things are currently moving at a pretty sedate speed and not nearly as fast as I think it should…but that’s why I need to fine-tune the gameplay, see. 😉

I also re-designed my extra spaceship. That’s the new version you see above. 🙂

Got any comments?…then leave me a message.