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AstroMania (alpha)

Name:	Mads Laumann
Date Posted:	Jul 29, 2007
Rating:	4.0 out of 5
Public:	YES
Comments:	YES
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Blog post

It been awhile since i have posted here, but so much have happen in my real life, so I haven't had much time to program games. One of the things is that Im going to be a dad later this yearm yiihaaa! :) around the beginning of November 2007 :)

Well, back to the game related.

Some days ago I started looking at TGB again, and played around with the behavior stuff. I got the idea of a little space game, where you had to rescue some lost soldiers and started coding it jsut for fun. In the beginning I only used the graphic from the TGB, but later I got my brother to draw something in paint :)

(I haven't desided yet, if I wanted to go for a really arcade/Amiga/Old PC kind of game, or I wanted to used some better drawings. Actually Im a big fan of the old time "Amiga" look-a-like games, but as i said, haven't desided yet)

I know the gameplay is'nt new at all, actually the basic idea is from a game i played many years ago "MarsTaxi" was the name, i think.

Basically the game is about rescueing (spellcheck:P) some lost men/soldier in the outer space. To make it a little stressed you only have X seconds for each level, so you better hurry up. In the future I though of putting in another aspect too. As it is now you have all the "lifes/respawns" as you like. This should of cause be alimited amount for each level.

The game is made in TGB 1.5.1.

Screenshots:

Download:
laumania.net/upload/file/AstroMania.rar

Please post your comments on the game :)

Recent Blog Posts

List:	07/29/07 - AstroMania (alpha) 02/20/07 - Web Monitor 02/10/07 - Ninja Nick - Part 1 02/02/07 - MCTS, Torque and C++ 01/24/07 - Can't be the only one with this problem...? 12/10/06 - Parachute - Part 1 12/03/06 - Putting the MMORPG on hold for a while... 11/20/06 - Tutorial hunting

Submit your own resources!

Tim Heldna (Jul 30, 2007 at 05:34 GMT)

Quote:

As it is now you have all the "lifes/respawns" as you like.

Thank God for that. I needed them!

I got as far as level 4 before bailing out; I just couldn't seem to grasp the concept of landing on my home platform once I had collected all those poor spacemen. Every time I tried to land, no matter how softly, I would always explode. It was a little frustrating having mastering the controls enough to save all the men only to spend the last 10 seconds of the level repeatedly crashing into the home platform, then time runs out and having to start again. Sometimes I would just brush past the side of the home platform and that would qualify as a landing?

Some different backgrounds and music on a per-level basis would really help make the game more interesting.

Mads Laumann (Jul 30, 2007 at 08:43 GMT)

Im sorry, that you got frustrated about not being able to land. Actually i haven't tryed that my self, I land perfect, is my speed isn't too high of cause.

Right now, the levels are not throught through or anything, it just shows the concept of how the levels work. For instance level 5 (last level right now) you only have 5 sec. to collect 4 men, which is pretty much imposible :P

But Im glad to hear your thoughts about it, it noted :)

Nikhil Sharma (Jul 30, 2007 at 20:21 GMT)

I used to play a game like this way back on DOS. Damn it was annoying to land the ship.. kept crashing it :P

It's (talking about that game) a good concept but after few levels there is nothing new but same old thing over and over. I will have to give this a try now.

Mads Laumann (Jul 30, 2007 at 20:36 GMT)

@Nikhil - I know there isn't very much new in the levels :) Right now im just trying it out to see if the game concept will work, and with some more difference between the levels i think it will :)

You both complaing about the ship being hard to land... I can make it easier, but I don't have any problems, maybe because I have now played around with this little ship pretty much :) But yeah, it need some skills to fly the beast :)

Kevin James (Jul 31, 2007 at 00:47 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Mads,

I haven't played the game, but I know that when you test a game time after time, you eventually get really good without even knowing. That's why it seems so easy to you. Some real-time beta testers that you can watch in person would do you some good as to adjusting the difficulty accordingly.

EDIT:

I'd be willing to create some art for you if you are interested. Drop me an email at syreal14@yahoo.com
Edited on Jul 31, 2007 00:49 GMT

Mads Laumann (Jul 31, 2007 at 06:11 GMT)

@Kevin - Yeah your right, I have tested it alot, so that's maybe the reason. I have to have some of my friends play it, so I can watch them and see what they think it too difficult. But again, it shouldn't be too easy :)

About the art part. It could be really nice if you would make some art for the game, Im not a great artist my self :P, but before I take your time, I will make the game more "stable/complete", so you don't waste your time. I'll contact you when i get there :) Thanks for the offer!

Nikhil Sharma (Jul 31, 2007 at 06:49 GMT)

BTW, the problem isn't the landing (in your game at least.. in other, I was a noob). The problem is the speed. After the take off it moves around like it is out of control.. just too fast. Might wanna reduce the speed in all directions, that should do it.

Mads Laumann (Jul 31, 2007 at 08:30 GMT)

@Nikhil - Hmm, i think the speed it fine, but I have tryed before that the speed of the game wasn't the same :( But this game i have tryed at at least 5 different PC's and they have all ran it with the right speed.

I'll try to record a video when i have time, so you can see how it runs on my computer, and how it SHOULD run. Then you can tell me if it runs the same on your computer.
:)

What it your computer specs?
Edited on Jul 31, 2007 08:31 GMT

Nikhil Sharma (Jul 31, 2007 at 09:00 GMT)

For speed you will just have to tweak few things. For eg., after accelerating into one direction the speed goes from 0-100 in like few seconds making it hard to stop it from crashing. Maybe you can expand the level and spread out the platforms a bit (few inches here and there) but still keep it challenging. Since you are the developer the game might seem easier to you (obviously :P) but I guess it will take a lot of practice for new players to get used to it as well.

Anyways, my system specs:

CPU > Athlon 64 3500+ (2376.2 MHz)
RAM > 2 GB
HDD > 460 GB
Display Card > nVidia 6800GS (256 MB)
Sound Card > Sound Blaster Live

The game runs fine for me. I think it just needs tweaking.

Kevin James (Jul 31, 2007 at 13:33 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Sometimes on faster computers collision callbacks will be called many more times than on slower computers. You can adjust for this in the callback by calling either delete or setEnabled(false).

I could be wrong but I think TGB 1.5 fixed this issue with the implementation of "ticked physics". That may be something totally different however.

Quote:
About the art part. It could be really nice if you would make some art for the game, Im not a great artist my self :P, but before I take your time, I will make the game more "stable/complete", so you don't waste your time. I'll contact you when i get there :) Thanks for the offer!

Wise words. ;D

Nikhil Sharma (Jul 31, 2007 at 14:49 GMT)

If you want I have this model lying around in my HDD which you can use to test until Kevin makes a better one. I was working on a 2D game a long time ago, the graphics were made in max with a bit of cell shading effects through in (anything orks when your game uses only sprites :P).
Edited on Mar 17, 2008 08:11 GMT

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