Monthly Archives: April 2014

Let’s Call April’s #1GAM Finished: Tap Invasion Post Mortem

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April is coming to a close and with it, my 5th “1 Game a Month” game must be called complete. Can I endlessly tinker with it? Sure. Did I sort of want the Blue Eyes to split apart into baby bad guys like those Zelda enemies? Yes. Should the game have ten more bosses? Should Level 12-13 be winnable? Will anyone other than me see the level 10 boss? Who knows, but it is April 3oth and it is time for Tap Invasion to be called finished. Here is the link to Tap Invasion.

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While May will probably see me embark on a month long quest to make a massively multiplayer procedurally generated infinite terrain RPG with exploration, self aware AI, fully original 3D characters, crafting everything in the game, modding and Occulus Rift support. Or maybe a multiplayer Pong clone?

Post Mortem:

What went well:

  • I had an initial idea for something with simple controls but Space Invaders-like and I think I’ve accomplished that goal.
  • I got the basic concept up and running in a day!
  • I was happy with my code design allowing me to easily add new enemies and other features.
  • 5 bosses, 5 enemies, 2 power ups – the game feels varied and polished.
  • I really like the soundtrack – but I hope to make my own music someday.
  • Most people who have given feed back say it’s simple to learn and addictive!
  • Making pixel art went pretty well – I think its cool, but who knows what other people think. I may continue this route for my future Space Wars games.
  • I have a lot of cool reusuable code – Top Score Board!
  • I sorta got touch controls to work, but still trying to get Unity Remote to work or get the game on my Android phone.

What went not so well:

  • Relearning PHP/MySQL and figuring out how to get it all working with Unity ate up a whole week!
  • Original score board code was super complicated.
  • My game controller object is super bloated.
  • The music is a little memory intense.
  • The game seems to get unbeatable – much better balanced now but could use a little more.
  • Trying to port to Android and iOS may be impossible!?

Tap Invasion Update! New enemies, bosses and power ups!

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We are getting closer to the finish I think! The game is balanced enough that it’s possible to get past the first 10 levels. There are two power ups now to help along the way and they appear more frequently. One rebuilds the city and the other destroys *almost* all the enemies on the board.

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Each bad guy has its own unique spin. The green ones are the standard but they move faster as the game goes on. Same with the reds but they go side to side. The orange are like the reds but tougher. The blue are slow but hard to kill. The gray ones are a like blues, but with a twist. The level 8 and 10 bosses are a bit of a surprise I think.

Here is the link to Tap Invasion… 

Tap Invasion: Updated Demo with bad guys and bosses!

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Here is the updated version of the game so far. Still some polishing to do, but I think it is coming along well! The game difficulty gets epically unbalanced by level 6. Most players can get there and then are completely destroyed–so I will have to adjust how the algorithms work around that point to keep the intensity but not make it impossible. Also a few more offensive power ups might help even the field a little.

Here is the link to Tap Invasion.

Level 6 of Tap Invasion-the game so far #screenshotsaturday

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Here is what Tap Invasion looks like right now. Almost feels like a complete game. Polish, polish, polish!

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I’ve added 3 types of bad guys, a boss–soon to be 3 bosses–, destroyable city that represents your life, remixed particles that match the game better–more pixel arty. There are also 2 powerups in the works-rebuild city powerup is in the left top corner-it’s like getting an extra life.

Tap Invasion – Simple Space Shooter Early Look

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tapinvaderscreenshot

My April #1GAM is going to be a mobile space shooter meets wack-a-mole game called Tap Invasion. I don’t think the name is taken and if not, I will attempt to release it on the Android Store and maybe the Mac Store as well. I am posting the WIP of the game just to show how it progresses over time. I’ve got recognizable place holder graphics for now. I think I will be adding a cityscape to the bottom that will get destroyed when aliens crash into it. I guess the way to lose will be to lose all the buildings of the city. Currently the game is infinite, but I may institute levels, a couple different enemies, enemy movement more like Galaga. The idea is to add touch controls so the best way for me to emulate that on my computer is the mouse, so just click on bad guys to blow them up.

Click here to play the EARLY demo of Tap Invasion.

 

CyberSphere Update – Continue Options

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Due to popular demand – I’ve added a Continue option on the start screen. Now you can try all 3 levels.

Truly beating the game means playing straight all the way through, but now if you want, you can pick up where you left off. A final real version would probably make the levels ‘unlockable’ but I am not ready to sit down and code that just yet. PC/Mac Versions will reflect this change shortly.

Oh and if you experience a glitch where you keep moving forward (cough, hobowithbacon, cough), I added a ‘stop’ button – X. Press X to stop – hopefully that works? Might have other uses for people without the glitch, not sure.

CyberSphere Game Demo for March #1GAM

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Alright, here is my March game. I managed 3 levels – 2 of which seem brutally hard! I will balance it all out in the future. The demo may take a while to load in the browser. I will also offer it as a download. It is graphic intensive I think so the desktop versions might be better. Also keep in mind I cannot test the PC version so good luck!

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The basic premise is that you are a hacker and you are trying to hack through a virtual reality version of a computer system to collect the data you are looking for. Each level ends when you collect a floppy disk.

Here is the link to the web version of CyberSphere…

Here is the Mac version in a *.zip – unpack it and click the app to play.

Here is the PC version in a *.zip – unpack it and there should be an EXE – I have not tested this version so use at your own risk! 

(links updated April 4 – continue and stop key ‘x’ added)

Also remember you can pick up certain cubes and drop them on things to trigger stuff. Pick up and drop is (E).

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Above is Level 3 of the Demo.

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This is the beginning of Level 2 which is a little different – I’d say intense in a different way.

I should also say since I don’t have a credits page that the music is really cool and I am allowed to use it by the very nice musician over at NoSoapRadio by DeceasedSuperiorTechnician. It’s licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.