Game: ArKade

[KiZ]

Just finished a game Ive been working on for a while now.

Its an arcade style game, with retro graphics, but slightly modernised style.

>download it here (987Kb)<
(sorry for the large size, thats the music)

I worked on this a loooong time ago in QB, and recently decided to port it over to FB. Instead of porting, I completely rewrote it.

I'm afraid that although I havent tested slower machines than my own (1.7GHz), i think it needs quite a powerful machine (preferably 1Ghz+) Just because it uses LOADSA lines. Heh.

Music, but no sound effects because often sound effects I find can just be annoying and tacky. You can add your own music as well. It has an updatable playlist.

Source Code included.

Crit and comments are welcome.


UPDATE:

Speed Patch to solve jerkiness in fast computers:

ArKade Speed Patch

Just replace the exe and bas files with those included.

[aetherfox]

Constructive Criticism:

 - EXCELLENT menu.  One of the most creative yet simple I've seen from an indie game.
 - High-quality music, but I hated it.  I'm not big into the techno.
 - Runs at ~60 FPS on my machine, but the gameplay is too jerky for more than about 5 minutes play.
 - The bouncing off walls is way too annoying.
 - The extra debris isn't really needed.  While it's nice to show that you can make vector particles bounce off walls, it would be nice to see a menu option disabling that.  The gameplay is jerky and complicated enough as it is.
 - Not the most creative name.
 - Good use of wireframe animation techniques.
 - That background is pretty much useless...

Can't think of much else.  I probably most enjoyed the wireframe animation, I'll be looking into your source.

[shiftLynx]

Excellent game... Very fast and smooth, it seems to handle lots of polys well. :) I'm curious about what collision detection you used?

Loved the music; I had to take them out and put them into my mod collection. \o/

Good work man, quality game. I suck at playing it; I keep getting owned, but I guess it just takes practice. :)

[MystikShadows]

like shiftLink said, pretty good game, I liked it....I did get weapons upgrades (to 3 beams of crap shooting outta me lol)...extreme level rocks :-)... well done.

[vins]

Wow. Really cool and fun game
I like the music too.  :rotfl:

[rdc]

Hard for an old guy like me, but nicely done.

[KiZ]

Wow, thanks for the comments guys!

Thanks aetherfox, I thought I would put some effort into making an interesting menu. And about the debris, you can turn it off. Just adjust the "Sparks" value to 0. I would slightly agree that the background is useless, but I feel it adds extra depth to the playing field. Playing without it is fine, but feels a bit vanilla for me. And about the bouncing: I tested out two different methods of play: one that allowed you to boost infinitely in any direction, and kept the ship in the middle of the screen, and the one with solid walls. I kept the walls because I wanted some defined boundaries, places for sparks/debris to bounce off and having no boundaries makes the game far too easy, as you can just run away from the monsters.
Thanks for the excellent crit.

Shiftlynx: Thanks very much man! I used Fmod and found your tut very helpful. When you say collision detection, for which bit did you mean? Debris colliding with walls, monsters with player, bullets with player? They use different techniques.

Mystik: Glad you liked it! Weapon upgrade 3 certainly kicks the crap outta those aliens! But you very much need it for the later waves and extreme mode. Those monsters come at you by the ten dozen!

Vins: Thanks! Glad you liked the music, I spent rather a long time digging those out of old mod sites. (I cant compose music to save my life)

rdc: Thanks

[aetherfox]

It's good to see you took the crit well, once I saw the other feedback I thought you might take mine too harshly.

I see what you mean about the bouncing, it's just that I found it a little hard to get used to in higher levels.  I guess it's part of the challenge.

I looked through your code, and it's a pretty clever job overall.  I like your collision detection methods.

In all fairness, I usually never like this kind of game.  I'm a much more traditional gamer - simple, upfront gameplay - stuff like FPS's, platformers or some, very VERY select RPG's.

[Pyrokid]

I loved it.
The only thing i didnt like was the bouncing off the walls and the ability to NOT stop that got annoying.
Other than that it rocked

[Jocke The Beast]

I can't download...seems like qbtk is down now....

Have any mirror sites for that download?


Edit:
http://forum.qbasicnews.com/viewtopic.php?t=9769

[Deleter]

^ Same  

[Anonymous]

aweeesome little game ^.^ and i really loved the music a lot

[KiZ]

Sorry guys, I didnt realise Quickhost was gonna be down. Its available now, though.

Cha0s: Thanks

Pyrokid: Thanks man

Aetherfox: I always try to take any crit in the most positive way. Its a great way to learn and improve. Apart from when its by Lachie. Then its just harsh. Im surprised you could find the collision detection in my code, its a bit messy in places, although I guess I put in the odd comment

[Z!re]

Hehe, addictive! :lol:

[Deleter]

Nice game.
I like the music, it captures the spirit of the game: light and bouncy
The way the mass of enemies parts when you shoot is awesome.

Now for some critism:
The playing area is too small, i felt claustrophobic being confined in that little area with my ever so bouncy rocket ship.

Um...Where's the high score table? Why can't I access it in-game?

Waaay too twitchy, it helps when i reduce the sparks, but even at 0 it still twitches.

Perhaps you should have more weapon upgrades/or maybe different weapon types instead of just single/double/triple.

However, all of the above is fine for an arcade game (except the twitching).
Good job