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[pluckyporcupine]

The World Isn't...AA!

Premise:

Back when the Mayans were creating their calendar, they stopped at 2012 not because of some silly alignment of stars or other balance of nature mumbo jumbo. No! They stopped at 2012 because that just happens to be when they were conquered!

Gameplay Outline:

The idea behind the game is that you're one of the people who was working on the calendar. You had just finished up to December 21, 2012, and were going to start on the next b'ak'tun (may have spelled that horribly), when all of the sudden, your civilization is conquered. You then flee for your life.

Instructions:

- Left and Right Arrows to move
- R resets the game.
- Just dodge things. 10 points when a yellow guy goes off screen, 15 when a red guy goes off screen, and 20 points when a dog goes off screen.

Downloads:

Play here!
Latest source

YOU HAVE TO ALLOW POPUPS!!!!!

To do:

- Add animation Add enemy animation
- Make background image
- Add more enemy types
- Add opening sequence before play
- Format the page that it's on and add instructions, along with a high scores link
- Make the score submissions less easy to cheat
- Upload source code
- Add sound
- I'm probably missing something...
FINISHED!

[pluckyporcupine]

December 6th:

After weighing my options, I think I'm going with the Vectrex.

I spent most of the day setting up my development environment. Between finding everything I needed for MESS and fighting with it to get it working, and then fighting DOSBox to get AS09 working, I'd taken up most of my allotted programming time.

However, I did get a title screen done:



Flashy, right? You'll notice that the title doesn't fit. I need to figure something out regarding that. I'm already cutting a large portion of the title off.

Anyways, that's all I've got for now. More tomorrow, I'm hoping.

[jkd]

Wait, so you didn't cut the title off intentionally? It's kind of funny as-is, sort of like famous last words.

[pluckyporcupine]

Changed the title to "The World Isn't.. AA!" because it fits.

EDIT:

December 7

Exams today, so I didn't get much done. I got the title fitting, put in my name, changed the copyright date, and am starting to design the player. Due to the way the Vectrex draws, it'll probably take me a bit of effort to get the player drawn correctly. I may end up just drawing a square and working with it for sake of brevity, and then replacing it at the end if I have time left.

Once I have the player movement done, I'm going to set up a download spot for the latest binary here and the latest source code for those interested here. Currently, these links do not work. I will update this when they do!

Also, so that I don't forget to post this, here's what you'll need to do to run the game:

1. Download MESS (a fork of MAME) from here.
2. Download the Vectrex system image (and game binaries) from here.
3. Download the latest binary here.
4. (optional) Download MESSUI here.
5. Unzip MESS's archive and m-vecbin.zip, create a folder called "vectrex" in MESS's roms folder, and put AT LEAST the latest binary AND the file called "system.img" from m-vecbin.zip in it. Put MESSUI.exe in the same folder as MESS.exe if you downloaded MESSUI.
6. If you downloaded MESSUI, open it. If not, you'll have to read up on the command line way to do this (something like navigating to the MESS folder through the command line and typing "mess vectrex twia.bin" or similar. Probably not exactly like that).
7. Once you have MESSUI opened, scroll down to "vectrex" and double-click it. MESS will be opened.
8. Once MESS is open, click Device -> Cartslot -> Mount... Navigate to "yourmessfolder/roms/vectrex/" and select "twia.bin".
9. Enjoy.

NOTE: If you don't edit the controls, they'll be something like:
- Arrow keys: joystick
- Shift: Button
- Ctrl: Button
- Alt: Button
- Space: Button

I'm going to try to have something "playable" by tomorrow or the next day.

[mikejkelley]

I like the new name, reminds me of Monty Python's castle "AAAARRGGGH" bit! 

[pluckyporcupine]

Okay, to be honest, I've been slacking off a lot, and the Vectrex thing is not working out well. I'm going to try my best to have a PC version done by the deadline.

On the bright side, I think I've created the main character:

[pluckyporcupine]

I really got working on the game today. I've got a few kinks to work out, some things to figure out how to do, some tweaks to make (not a whole lot of action atm, and just changing a few variables could remedy that pretty easily), and then I'll have a first test build ready.

Currently, there IS a game. However, said game is not incredibly fun. There are a number of things I still have to do (animation, refinement, adding more types of attackers, etc), but the base is there, and I'm working on it.

In the end, you probably won't actually move at all, instead opting for an illusion of movement with enemies attacking from all over, and such.

At the moment, it's a one-button game. If you press and hold the action button (Spacebar), you'll go in a horizontal direction. Press it again and you'll go the opposite direction, press it again...blah blah.

Here's a screenshot of the current build:

[pluckyporcupine]

Okay, I hacked together a way for high scores to work. It's not so much insecure as it is...just stupid. You'll see what I mean. I'm working on making it work better though.

You can find the current build under "Graphical Games" here. Alternatively, you can just go directly to it here and view the high scores table here. Word of warning: the text on the high scores table is white and there is no background color, meaning it won't show if you don't go through the first link.

Instructions:

- Spacebar or X make you move.
- R resets the game.
- Just dodge things. 10 points when a guy goes off screen.

To do:

- Add animation
- Make background image
- Add more enemy types
- Add opening sequence before play
- Format the page that it's on and add instructions, along with a high scores link
- Make the score submissions less easy to cheat
- Upload source code
- I'm probably missing something...

I'm also taking suggestions. I'm not sure how to make this more interesting, though I do feel the current mechanics are diabolically evil (read: disorienting enough to be sort of difficult) in their own respect.

EDIT: Modified the OP to reflect that there is a build that's up.

EDIT2: If you feel that it's too difficult because of the red guys that come from behind you, I had modified it to give you 25 points when they go off screen, AS WELL AS making it so that you're further away from that border, but I forgot to upload it, and I think I'm going to continue to make some tweaks before uploading it.

EDIT3: Blah, need to fix the high scores table. It isn't doing what I want it to. Fixed. Forgot to tell it to print in descending order.

EDIT4: Uploaded the latest source code with a copy of the New (3 clause) BSD License. I don't really think there's a reason to keep something closed source if you're not intending to sell it. There's always a chance that there's someone who could learn from it.

Just as a note, the release includes everything required to run the game, PHP scripts included. The only thing I didn't include was my DB information. I also changed the name of the table.

[pluckyporcupine]

Added:

- Player animation
- Scrolling background (Not as nice looking as it could be. I get impatient sometimes. )

Changed:

- Red guys give 15 points now
- Yellow guys go twice as fast now

Source was updated, as was the play webpage.

EDIT: Took the source down temporarily.

I also forgot a screenshot of the latest build:

[pluckyporcupine]

Added:

- Dogs that are totally evil. They also happen to have gotten animation before the invader guys. They give 20 points when they go off-screen. The one that comes from the left goes twice as fast as the one that comes from the right.

Changed:

- Your score can no longer be edited before submission.
- Changed movement from Spacebar to Arrow Keys, due to suggestions from girlfriend and family.
- Modified dogs to be slightly less evil.

Going to change:

- Going to make dogs white. They're really tough to see as they are now, and were even TOUGHER to see before, when they were brown.

Seriously looking for suggestions about difficulty, gameplay, etc.

EDIT:

YOU HAVE TO ALLOW POPUPS!!!!! If you don't, the submit score window can't pop up when you die. It's just the way it works.

EDIT2:

Put the source back up. Hope the licenses are included correctly.

EDIT3: Made a new webpage for the game that is working the way I want it to.

[pluckyporcupine]

Added:

- Story Panels on first startup.
- All sprites are animated.

Debating changing:

- Dog color to make it lighter, closer to white. I want opinions first though.

EDIT: Since all I have left to do is sound, I'm not going to update the source until sound is in, and then I can upload the finished source code.

EDIT2: I lied. I updated the source code.

EDIT3: Took the source down again while I make absolute sure I'm doing this license thing right. Also, I forgot that by default, the webpage stuff included with the binary was old, had no references to db.php and my database information was there for the taking. >.>

[pluckyporcupine]

Today I added sounds, made with SFXR, for when the dogs spawn and when the players die, and struggled with PXTone a bit. I might end up replacing them, but in case I don't, I've got sounds in.

As far as music goes, I don't know if I'll be able to put something together in PXTone by the deadline, so I might pick up my guitar and make a song for the game. However, that means I will likely have to replace the sounds to make them match.

[pluckyporcupine]

Added music. Not my favorite creation in the musical area, but I just couldn't come up with anything. As far as I'm concerned, it's done. If I get any feedback from here, I'll make tweaks, but for now, it's done.

EDIT: For some reason, music doesn't seem to be working on the domain I'm using...

If it doesn't work for you and that bothers you, try using this link.

EDIT: Okay, I lied. I wasn't done with it. I made it get progressively more difficult. If it feels too difficult, I'll lessen the curve a bit.

EDIT: I made the curve half what it was.

Insane picture of what happens at 40000 points.