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[renkin]

UPDATE: Two new dev screens. Game info.
UPDATE: FINISHED. Game link.
UPDATE: Added Dropbox direct link. More convenient. One click instead of two, and no Flash requirement.
UPDATE: Mac users, enjoy! And updated game info.

Download

Battle Mode, Windows

Battle Mode, Mac

The Game



Objective

Battle Mode is a platform/shoot 'em up where the objective is to kill the other player first. You fire your weapon in bursts of three bullets. Crates with health and power-ups drop from above, and conveyor bring them (and possibly you) to the bottom. Win three rounds to win the game.

Power-ups

Battling for the power-ups is a big part of the game, and one of the keys to winning it (but don't get reckless, or a smart player will use it to their advantage). There are three kinds:

• Bouncing bullets - Bullets will bounce on walls up to two times
• Spread shot - Firepower is tripled, in a wider angle for better hit chance
• Health - Health is increased by one

Power-ups last 30 seconds, and can be combined. Use them well! But beware. There's a fourth kind of drop that will hurt you.

Controls

The game is playable with keyboard and joysticks/gamepads. There are two keyboard configurations to chose from in the game, and up to two joysticks/gamepads will be detected, if you have any connected.

	Move/Aim	Shoot (hold)	Jump
Keyboard 1*	<Arrow keys>	Ctrl	Shift
Keyboard 2	A, S, D, W	G	H
Joystick 1	<Directions>	Button 1	Button 2
Joystick 2	<Directions>	Button 1	Button 2

* The Mac version uses Alt for shooting and Space for jumping

Configurations are simply selected at the title screen.


Background/Devlog

Me and Anders (the other creator of this game) are always discussing games that would be cool to make, but even if an idea goes beyond brainstorming, the game is usually too big and complex, and we end up not finish it. Realizing this, we've come up with some ideas for really small games, that one could finish in a forseeable future. One of those was for a versus game.

When TIGSource announced the Versus compo, we decided to enter it and finally finish a game.

A week ago, we actually started to make it...

Without further ado, some development screens from Battle Mode:


Platforms and basic input and movement


Added 8-directional shooting


Animated conveyor belts, Metal Man style!


Due to the tight time schedule, we used an old, previously unused sprite and colorized it. It works.


Started playing around with level editing. Added power-up boxes. Running out of time.


Title screen.


Rounds and winning implemented. Everything done except designing the level.

So there you have it. A platformer versus game. Graphics are basic, but we're quite happy with how it plays. Expect the game tomorrow! (Hopefully)

[mikejkelley]

Looks like fun!

[renkin]

Hopefully it'll play like fun, as well.

[renkin]

Quick lunch update (Swedish time): Not much sleep last night. Everything seemed to go wrong in the face of the pending deadline. First my computer crashed and made the game file corrupt, but we were saved by Game Maker's automatic backups (thank you, Mark Overmars). Then, as we were about to upload, my Internet connection went down, and I couldn't retrieve a new IP. We ended up sealing the deal with Anders' iPhone. But we did it.

And we're really happy with how the game turned out. We did cut out a couple of features, but in the end it just made the game more focused. Feel free to try it out and report to us if you find any bugs!

Download link is in the first post. I may update the game info and add a screenshot of the final version when I get home from work, if I'm not too tired.

[renkin]

I'm planning on building a Mac version of the game (with no difference except modified default controls because Macs don't have a right CTRL). Can anyone say if it would be according to the rules to upload an additional Mac version, even though it's past the deadline?

[RSD]

Nice game! to bad i don't have anyone to try it out with.. so i ended up playing against myself  I'm curious, what programming language did you use to create it?

[renkin]

Nice game! to bad i don't have anyone to try it out with.. so i ended up playing against myself   I'm curious, what programming language did you use to create it?

Thanks for playing! It's a lot more enjoyable against another player, though.

As for your question, we didn't use a language per se, but Game Maker. Very nice tool for rapid game development.

EDIT: Forgot to mention. A Mac version can now be downloaded. The file is much larger than the Windows version, for some Game Maker related reason, but the contents are the same. Enjoy!