Completed: Omega Race 2009

Yes, after 3½ week I’ve finally finished Omega Race 2009.

I think it turned out even better than I’d hoped for and I hope you will all enjoy it too.

Please give me some feedback and tell me what you think of it – is it too easy, too hard, too shiny, too pretty or too-something-else?

Update: May 22th 2009. Just 12 hours after original release I’ve updated to v1.1. This version is a lot easier.
If you have already downloaded the game then download it again if you want it to be less challenging.
I’m also working on a version 1.2. This will appear soon and have many more tweaks and features.

It’s been a fun little distraction from Psycho Pigs UXB, which I’ve been working on for 3 months now, but now it’s time to continue working on that game.

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I’d originally made the remake like that as well.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. 😀

More ships in Space Fury.

You may have read that I’m expanding Space Fury to have 4 times the enemies.
Most of that is already done. Tonight I decided that if there are more bosses and more enemies, there should also be more powerups for the player.

Powerups in Space Fury are basically new ships to fly in. You start off with a small red ship and in the original arcade machine you get the choice to dock and add something to your hull. The original game has 3 extra hulls to chose from.

I’ve just implemented a 4th powerup/hull/extraship to chose from.
Here are the 4 expanded ships as they look now. The last yellow one is the new one.

EDIT: It was pointed out to me that the new ship don’t fit in so well with the 3 original ones, because it’s curved. I thought the idea was good at the time but I’m actually not too crazy about it myself – the glow gets a bit to intense because of the higher amount of lines needed to make the curved shape, so I may change the shape to something else when I get a better idea. 🙂

Space Fury update

It’s really been bugging me for a while, that Space Fury is a pretty simple game.
There isn’t much to work with contentwise – the original game has just one boss (the big talking alien…which you don’t battle against) and 4 different enemy ships that you do fight. But really…when you reach wave/level 4 in the original game you stay there and the game just repeats until you lose your final life.

Content Lite ™“…see what I’m talking about? 😉

So what to do?…

Well, I had an idea the other day – “make more enemies“. Simple when you think about it really. 😀

Now the plan is to extend the game to have 4 bosses, of 4 waves (and different enemies) each, for a total for 16 enemies total. That’s 4 times what the original game has – that should (hopefully) keep you people entertained for a while…I hope. 🙂

I’ve already designed one boss (well, I lifted the design from a T-shirt, but don’t tell anyone) and 4 new enemies to go with it. That’s halfway there already. Shouldn’t be a big problem to make some more.
Now I just need to code it as well…but that shouldn’t be a problem either. 😉

Here’s a preview of one of the new enemies.

Stay tunes for more vectors news.