Game Off 2019 Prep
In preparation for the Game Off 2019 competition, I made an account on itch.io. You can view my itch.io profile, but I don't have anything on there right now. I was thinking about uploading my game "Star Trek: Borg Attack" on there, but I don't want to infringe on any IP Holder rights. Plus, Viacom, Paramount, and CBS have been known to be really defensive about fan productions of Star Trek. Here's a screen shot of the game if you think I'm bluffing:
I think I made it with Game Maker 5 or 6 a long time ago (around 2004). I remember "programming" this game before high school. The YoYo Games logo does not show up when started, so it has to be before Game Maker 7 (2007). At least, according to the Wikipedia articles on Game Maker.
The game started by giving you this big text window that just explained the controls: I had WASD for moving the ship, spacebar to fire phasers, and I also had TFGH for going into warp. There was even a music play (number 1 on the number row) and a music stop key (number 0 on the number row). However, I didn't know how to change the volume, so the Star Trek: TNG midi blared at full volume. The score, shields/hull, and warpdrive were all displayed in the window's title.
So, the goal of the game was to shoot as many borg cubes, the gray squares with the green squiggles on them, as you can before your ship was destroyed. You would control that gray ship in the center that I modeled after the Enterprise-D. The orange things were your phasers, and you would shoot four for each cardinal direction when you pressed the spacebar. The borg cubes would try to shoot you with those green balls. Now, I didn't know how to program good enemy AI back then, so I just had every borg cube shoot four of those green balls for each cardinal direction whenever any key was pressed. As you destroyed cubes, more cubes would be on the screen at once. If your ship got too damaged, you could drive the ship into the dry dock (the six legged rectangle with the blue lines around it) to get your shield/hull and warpdrive refilled instantly. Of course, the dry docks don't disappear or be destroyed, so you could camp in them if there were too many projectiles on the screen at once.
Now, this game was also an experiment with Game Maker's camera. There's more area that what was shown on screen, so you could fly further in any cardinal direction. There was even more dry docks where the ship could be repaired off screen. It was also nice to have borg cubes spawn off the screen and make the player fly around to find them. The camera pans really slowly, but it was able to keep up with the ship's normal speed. Now, if you go into warp using the TFGH keys, there is this effect of the ship slowly accelerating faster than the camera. Which, I thought was a nice effect for going into warp on a starship.
I wish I could share the game, but I don't want to get itch.io or myself in trouble on my first day on itch.io.
The game started by giving you this big text window that just explained the controls: I had WASD for moving the ship, spacebar to fire phasers, and I also had TFGH for going into warp. There was even a music play (number 1 on the number row) and a music stop key (number 0 on the number row). However, I didn't know how to change the volume, so the Star Trek: TNG midi blared at full volume. The score, shields/hull, and warpdrive were all displayed in the window's title.
So, the goal of the game was to shoot as many borg cubes, the gray squares with the green squiggles on them, as you can before your ship was destroyed. You would control that gray ship in the center that I modeled after the Enterprise-D. The orange things were your phasers, and you would shoot four for each cardinal direction when you pressed the spacebar. The borg cubes would try to shoot you with those green balls. Now, I didn't know how to program good enemy AI back then, so I just had every borg cube shoot four of those green balls for each cardinal direction whenever any key was pressed. As you destroyed cubes, more cubes would be on the screen at once. If your ship got too damaged, you could drive the ship into the dry dock (the six legged rectangle with the blue lines around it) to get your shield/hull and warpdrive refilled instantly. Of course, the dry docks don't disappear or be destroyed, so you could camp in them if there were too many projectiles on the screen at once.
Now, this game was also an experiment with Game Maker's camera. There's more area that what was shown on screen, so you could fly further in any cardinal direction. There was even more dry docks where the ship could be repaired off screen. It was also nice to have borg cubes spawn off the screen and make the player fly around to find them. The camera pans really slowly, but it was able to keep up with the ship's normal speed. Now, if you go into warp using the TFGH keys, there is this effect of the ship slowly accelerating faster than the camera. Which, I thought was a nice effect for going into warp on a starship.
I wish I could share the game, but I don't want to get itch.io or myself in trouble on my first day on itch.io.
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