Invaders Homage #1 2nd look

Here is the 2nd video of the Invaders game. It is amazing what I can program while sat in the waiting room of a Hospital. Also while waiting for blood to be drawn, or even while waiting for the Dr at the Doctors office.
I have reused a number of systems that I either reused for the Hoopfighter game, or created while programming it. So when you look at the video, check out the reused systems.

• Effects systems are in place, and are strikingly familiar to the ones from HoopFigher
• Collectables control allows me to easily and quickly create the bullets and the Alien itself.

Invaders 2nd movie from Robert Toone on Vimeo.

I did have to create a new collision routine so the Collectables could collide with other types of Collectables. Apart from that I have not created anything new for this game, routine wise of course.

I can tell you are watching the video and thinking. WHAT THE HECK is that Alien thing moving down the screen. Instead of looking at the aliens drawing, how about looking at its movement, which I modelled on the Space Invaders wave movement. I also did several things in this prototype thats harder to notice. It is those little details that I believe sets my games apart from some of my competition.

for example,

• This alien drops bombs, not just from its center, but also from the its edges. This made a much more exciting spread of bombs to dodge. It also allowed me to not corner the player too easily.
• This alien does not fire when it does its last two strafing runs across the screen. I believe that would be unfair to the player, and not what I really want to do to a player. It is about the player enjoying the fight, not being punished because the bad guy got too close.
• The Health bar although in a test reduction configuration. You can see that I have chosen to not simply take the bar and reduce it from the right side to the left. Instead I have centered the health bar in the screen, and then I have made the bar shrink as health is reduced. Yeah, so I also colored it for more pizzaz, but really this type of health bar has a real benefit over the long line slowly shrinking to the left. The main advantage is that it is always easy to see how much health you have, also health that disappears goes from both sides and this makes you notice it so much faster.. and makes a player more worried. I also believe it being centered in this way makes it really obvious when you are really low on health.

I have more to write even about this video, but it will have to wait. I'll try to mention them in my next installment.

Laters
Da Voodoochief