next »

[ThetaGames]

by Theta Games

Description You are Pilot 176.  You have been sent to the dense jungles of Neo-Indochina, where the Enemy, in order to provide cover for themselves, has seeded many invasive, dangerous plants.   You must spray large amounts of herbicides on the plants in order to halt their growth and ultimately eradicate them. ORANGE is a bit like an arena-shooter, though instead of shooting at isolated enemies, you face an ever-growing mass of plants, which evolve and become more dangerous as the game progresses.		Inspired by

Download
Mirror I (Box.net)
Mirror II (Mediafire)
Mirror III (YoYoGames)


How to play
WASD:  Move
IJKL / Arrow Keys / Mouse:  Spray Herbicides (in given direction)
Space:  Pause
F12:  Display FPS

If you want to shoot with the mouse, move the mouse or left-click to make the mouse-cursor appear.  You can readily switch back and forth between control types (IJKL, Arrow Keys, and Mouse) in-game.


Screenshot:



Playthrough Video (Spoiler Alert!):





Updates:

Final Version (v1.0):

 - Adjusted the sound effect volume levels.
 - Made sure the game does not change resolution.
 - Added README, etc.
 - Made other minor adjustments.

Demo V:

 - Attempted once again to fix the main music bug.  It should be fixed now.

Demo IV:

 - Attempted to fix a bug with the music that was sometimes occurring on different computers.
 - Adjusted the balance of sound effects
 - Made other minor adjustments

Demo III:

 - Added storyline screens and a title screen.
 - Added sound effects and music.
 - Added the option for mouse control, as well as the arrow keys (instead of IJKL).
 - Made four lives before game over.
 - Made the dark green plants grow at a slightly faster rate.
 - Adjusted the red, thorn-shooting plants so that when you damage them, it takes a bit longer for them to be able to shoot again.

Demo II:

 - Added a small, white circle on the ship to show its collision radius.
 - Made the plants spawn more on all sides of the screen (so they don't just grow in a corner).
 - When you die, a 20 second penalty is now added to your time.
 - Made it so that no more than one of the red, thorn-shooting plants can appear at a time until the very end of the game (~95%).  At this point, no more than two can appear.

[ThetaGames]

Vines have been added:

[tipp]

Looks pretty interesting, I really don't know how it will play, but I'll keep an eye on it.

[Melly]

Haha, creative direction to take such a non-descript case.

[ThetaGames]

Looks pretty interesting, I really don't know how it will play, but I'll keep an eye on it.

Those green blobs are the plants.  During the game, they grow rather quickly, and also send out things to attack you, like vines and things that shoot.  Shooting them with the orange herbicides slows their growth, and ultimately kills them.  The game is about managing clusters of plants, and focusing on which will likely hurt you the most.

To beat the game (which will consist of one continuous level), you have to get to 100% without dying.  I will likely program a high-score system, in order to keep track of the fastest time beating the game.

Haha, creative direction to take such a non-descript case.

Thanks.  This case really stood out to me, due to its simplicity and ambiguity.

[agj]

Ah, this is about Agent Orange. Will there be any sociopoliticeconomicecological issues raised via the narrative?

[ThetaGames]

Ah, this is about Agent Orange. Will there be any sociopoliticeconomicecological issues raised via the narrative?

My inspiration for this game was taken from the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, and there will be a short narrative, which should at least cause the player to think about such issues.  The game should be a broad metaphor, satirizing all attempts at warfare similar to Vietnam (i.e. war waged in order to prevent the "spread" of something).  Ecological issues will be raised as well.  I have lots of themes planned. 

Here is another screenshot of my progress:

[ThetaGames]

I have uploaded an early demo of this.  Please see first post.

[chris_b]

FPS was 60 most of the time - 1.5 GHz Pentium M with Intel 915GM graphics (ie. not a particularly powerful machine).

As for difficulty: sometimes it was super easy because things kept spawning from one corner of the screen throughout the whole game so I never got surrounded. When there was a lot of bullets to dodge I felt it would be helpful to have a circle drawn over the player, or something like that, to indicate the collision radius.

[ThetaGames]

Those were all great ideas, chris_b, and I tried to implement them in Demo II (which is now up - please see first post).  Now, there is a small, white circle on top of the ship, which shows its collision radius.  Plants should also now spawn on all sides more often, so that they don't just stay in the corner.

[agj]

 - How fast (fps) did the game run for you?  I tried to include measures to boost the fps should the game slow down.  If the fps drops low, you may notice that the circles begin to look like polygons.  I may include other measures if it runs too slowly for people.

 - How difficult was the game for you?  How is the difficulty curve?  I understand that this current demo has infinite respawns, but in the final version, the player will likely have three lives.

- 60 fps.

- It does get eventually pretty intense. I think it was good, though I would've died much sooner with just three lives. I actually only lost my first when I was at about 90%, but then I lost a good bunch in just a few of seconds.

[ThetaGames]

- 60 fps.

- It does get eventually pretty intense. I think it was good, though I would've died much sooner with just three lives. I actually only lost my first when I was at about 90%, but then I lost a good bunch in just a few of seconds.

Okay, this sounds good.  I want it to get pretty intense at the end, but I also don't want the beginning and middle sections to be boring, either.  I will, however, make some slight changes to ease up the difficulty in the end a bit - namely, when you shoot the red "berries" that shoot thorns, it will take longer for them to be able to shoot again.

[Melly]

I like how the game's coming out so far, but my keyboard REALLY doesn't like all the simultaneous button pressing you're forcing me to do. I kept getting keys not responding just before that 'bleep' sound, and I heard that a lot more than usual (they should really start making keyboards that can handle heavy simultaneous pressing. I don't understand what would be so hard about it).

I suggest you add an option to use the mouse to aim and fire the weapon. You can still limit the firing to 8 cardinal directions, just have it fire to the direction closest to the mouse cursor. That would make sure people with non-super keyboards can play the game properly.

[agj]

Actually, I'm fairly sure that just leaving the cursor keys available as an option to the IJKL keys would solve that for most people.

[ink.inc]

Adding mouse capability would be highly recommended.

As it is right now, the game isn't too much of a challenge. Beat it without taking a single hit.

However, this might be because I was playing it at 25 fps, which made it a hell of a lot easier to dodge things. But 25 fps isn't your fault; I'm just playing it on an old ass computer.

[ThetaGames]

Sorry for the late replies; I was away for a week.  These are all excellent suggestions.  I will add the cursor keys as an alternative to JKLI, and I will most likely add mouse-controlled shooting.  I will see if constraining the mouse-shooting to eight directions makes it awkward; if it is, then I will make the mouse shooting be full-360.

@John Sandoval:  I think a lot of that might have been the low-fps.  In general, though, I don't want the game to be too hard - I want people to be able to finish it.

[ThetaGames]

I have uploaded Demo III, which includes many additions, including the option for mouse-controlled shooting (though it is still constrained to the eight cardinal directions, as per Melly's suggestion), along with the option for using the arrow keys instead of IJKL.  Please see first post.

[Melly]

Playing the latest version, got this once the story screen faded out:

Code:

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of Create Event
for object title_obj:

Failed to play song - 

Game played fine, if silently, after that. Mouse aiming took some getting used to, since the constrained firing directions are not usual for mouse control (not saying they're bad, I suggested them myself. ), But they're important to balance the control schemes and they didn't take too long before becoming second nature.

Otherwise the game's fun. Some sound effects would be nice, and perhaps you should let the player fire during the invincibility time after it respawns. Decrease the invincibility time slightly if necessary.

Then I go to the second story screen where I was conngratulated for destroying a whole natural habitat. Then when the screen faded out again I got this:

Code:

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of Create Event
for object title_obj:

Failed to play song - 

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of  Step Event
for object desolate_leave:

Failed to play song - 

Code:

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of Create Event
for object title_obj:

Failed to play song - 

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of  Step Event
for object desolate_leave:

Failed to play song - 

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of Create Event
for object title_obj:

Failed to play song - 

After which it let me go back to the title screen (I pressed "Ignore" on all of these).

[ThetaGames]

I agree, the constrained mouse-aiming does take a little getting used to.  I think it is actually more fun to play with, though, than the full-360-degree shooting (in addition to it being more balanced).

Actually, there are sound effects.    However, I kept them low and subdued, so that they would not overpower the music.  I may increase their volume a bit, however.  I will also most likely give the player the ability to shoot during the invincibility time.

About the errors, did you get any music at all?  All of the music worked fine for me.

I think I know what might be causing the problem, though I don't know why (since it works for me).

~ Theta

[Melly]

Perhaps there's an external file you didn't include? Are you using supersound.dll or another external library?

No, I don't think I got any music during gameplay.