ASCII Shooter

[ShadowCentaur]

hey. here is my ASCII character based space shooter. i've gotten all the bugs from converting over from DB to PB out, so it runs smoothly now. it's still a work in progress, i've got most of the gameplay elements but i want to add much more embellishment. save the main program and the two attatched levels in the same folder to make them work together. I'd appreciate any feedback and suggestions!



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[kevin]

I'm impressed you've come so far so quickly,  but just so you know that the * ASCIshooter.pbp file you've posted is the project information file and not actually the source code.  So nobody can run it.    It's prolly best zip up projects folder and post that. 

[ShadowCentaur]

doh! >.< ok, i zipped it and attatched.

[Rembrandt Q Einstein]

This game was great.  Nothing like what I saw when Kevin first ported it.  Not only that, but an easy to use map editor and 2 player mode.  I'd be exicited to see where you take it.

[ShadowCentaur]

you've made my day. right now i'm working on making more skins for the boss, and perhaps some new behavior as well. and i'd like to add some more " hey look at that shiney thing in the background" type stuff. do you have any suggestions of cool stuff or features to add?

[Rembrandt Q Einstein]

Sure.  As is, you don't need to aim to hit the boss, all you have to do is avoid his shots.  This makes use of your energy bar pretty much useless because you just hold the fire button down.  If there were times you couldn't hit him, you could charge up then and that would be more fun.  It would also be cool if you could attack parts of him to destroy his rediculous firepower.

Beating the boss is almost unbearable if you don't have fully upgraded shots. Maybe debris at the boss area could give away missiles and fire power ups too.  It would also be nice if you could have areas without debris so you could focus more on enemies.

Instead of using MouseButton() =, you can use RightMouseButton() and LeftMouseButton().  This will make it so you can fire a missile and bullet at the same time.  Check the reference and you'll see that mousebutton returns 8 numbers based on the combination of right, left, and middle pressed, where as mid/right/leftmousebutton just tells you that specific button regardless of other two.

It would also be cool if you had bombs or side shots to deal with the upper and lower enemies. 

[Draco9898]

How about a 50% alpha blend on  the screen to make it look like GeometryWars? That'd be cool

[kevin]

Shadow Centaur,

    It's great idea, executed nicely.   I'm very impressed with how fast you've been able to move the code across.    Congrats!

[ShadowCentaur]

alpha-blending huh? i'll have to figure out how to do that! what would be the "best way" do you think? i think i'm gonna work on making the boss battles better, in terms of variety, difficulty, "fun-ness" and embellishments. still trying to figure out how to make those shape particles work for me...

[ShadowCentaur]

i've spliced in kevin's shape particles and they're working great. i've just discovered the "sprite collision class" set of commands, so i'm going to work on putting that in, as i have basically nothing but collision checks in there. i fixed the stupid leftmousebutton() thing. i'll post the code when the collision classes do what i want and the boss is improved.

[ShadowCentaur]

here's a newer version with the shape particles inplemented. 2 more boss skins added, and some powerups drop for you every so often during the fight. i also simplified the "releasepowerup" system that was rediculously complicated for no particlular reason. i'll make some changes to the actual bossfight itself soon. destructable boss pieces are one cool idea, anyone got anything else? i'm thinking of a giant laser beam of some kind, or some more patterned shots than the current random scattering i've got right now.

[Tifu]

My head asploded :(

Pretty cool. I second that destructable boss pieces would be a great plus. I always feel i'm getting somewhere when bits of my enemies fall off :D

[ShadowCentaur]

I'm back! Here is the latest version of my ascii shooter. I've added Hyper-mode. and i've put in a few sounds, but that's not complete. I plan on totally revamping the boss system. I'm thinking of adding bosses that fall apart as you kill them, fire big lasers, shoot missles, have more complicated movement behaviour, etc. i've fixed some parts of the map maker. I also plan to add other "hyper" powerups, like temporary spreadfire, crazy good missles, bombs that explode the whole screen. I have just resumed working on it again, and i'd appreciate any response.

[ShadowCentaur]

I've worked on it some more. the boss falls apart now as you kill him, every 1/4 of his hp you knock out blows off one piece. no changes to attack pattern yet. i have changed the powerups so that most of them refill your energy meter when you pick them up. might want to change how much each gives you...  i also noticed i do not make use of any rotation whatsoever, so i think i'm gonna add something that rotates. I also wonder, what framerates are you all getting? i'm trying to trim the fat off it, i've eliminated some superfluous drawsprites and collision checks. i appreciate any feedback.

[ShadowCentaur]

I've added a five way shot powerup, and made a few misc. tweaks.