[sparkes]

A quick rough cut of what I've been working on the last couple of weeks.

As usual in my early cuts you can't die so there isn't much point but it's nice to look at.

http://zx-81.com/software/virus_wars.zip

EDIT:
oh yeah, use the asteroid controls as the robotron ones are something I started about a week ago and spent about 10 mins on so they don't hardly work at the moment.

[RobF]

Argh, git. I'll have to try it in the morning. I'm off for an early night!

[Tam Toucan]

Nice return to the boards! One comment is the scrolling storyline is a bugger to read (too fast), but then does anyone bother?

FYI Plays fine on my AMD 64 3000+ with GeForce 6800. Drops some frames (probably CPU bound) when screen full of virus gets destroyed, but not horrendous.

[sparkes]

Nice return to the boards! One comment is the scrolling storyline is a bugger to read (too fast), but then does anyone bother?

it's all just a jokey comment on storylines with a frankly stupid storyline introducing a basic shooter but I don't think it's tied into the same method of framerate as the game so I'll look into it anyway.

FYI Plays fine on my AMD 64 3000+ with GeForce 6800. Drops some frames (probably CPU bound) when screen full of virus gets destroyed, but not horrendous.

It drops to around 30fps (but sometimes less) on my laptop with a Radeon 9000 and something mobility which is probably the lowest spec it's playable on at the moment but I'm going to do some optimisation over the next week anyway so it should be all sorted soon.   It doesn't use line drawing and the accumulation buffer like RoidRage did which crippled so many peoples machines with much higher specs than the celly 633 it was developed on so it should be more universal in it speed soon.

[BigAnd]

Just to let you know it locked up my Vista 64 box. Had to do a hard reset. Just clicked the exe, the screen goes black and then everything hangs. Hope you can fix it as the graphics in the data directory look top

[sparkes]

MMMmm cheers for that And, SWMBO has a vista 64 box and an earlier build worked on it perfectly but that was before I added sound and a few other bits so I'll take another look.

[Ian]

Just played it on my lappy - 4+ year old ATI Radeon 9600 and it worked fine! Only slowed down for a nano-second when there really is a shit lot of stuff going on (after the yellow balls appeared). Surprised me, tbh!

Now, can I have some fresh eyeballs please?

[sparkes]

Just played it on my lappy - 4+ year old ATI Radeon 9600 and it worked fine!

It should do that's about the same spec as the one it's being developed on

Now, can I have some fresh eyeballs please?

The new version has more eyecandy and is less bright when the explosions happen.

[RobF]

All running dandy here!

[sparkes]

cheers guys I'll get a new version up in a couple of days for testing which looks a millions times better but it's getting near optimisation time and I'll be needing to upload a debug version to discover where the crashes happen.

It's like a Disco on acid at the moment now I've sorted some of the blend functions.

Then comes that everyso interesting bit of balancing the game and finishing the menus and option screens one of which bores me to tears and I scrap everything and if it's the game balance portion you have the added piss factor of realising you've just wasted a month of your life

I need it ready soon to use as an audition piece for a course I've been offered the opportunity to apply for in a couple of weeks so I can't scrap it now I've got to make it work.

[sparkes]

Have another quick demo, still can't properly die but you do get the effects and loss of 10x multiplier if you touch an enemy you just don't die when you touch an enemy and you have less than 10x multiplier as you will in the game proper.

Time to start balancing the game a bit and finishing off the config/highscores etc now.

download



Impossible to grab a nice action shot.

[saulc12]

Have another quick demo, still can't properly die but you do get the effects and loss of 10x multiplier if you touch an enemy you just don't die when you touch an enemy and you have less than 10x multiplier as you will in the game proper.

Time to start balancing the game a bit and finishing off the config/highscores etc now.

download



Impossible to grab a nice action shot.

That's coming along nicely  now excuse my while I just go an wash my eyes in a bucket of bleach... :-)

[Minion]

A "Skip the scolling text" button would really be nice

[Tam Toucan]

A "Skip the scolling text" button would really be nice

Pressing fire works for me.

One thing when you're tweeking....I played for quite a while (blue balls on at least) and my multiplier stayed around 40. I think stopped shooting, waited and started again. It went up to around 70 and stayed there.

Good luck with this. I hope it serves well in the application.

[sparkes]

I think stopped shooting, waited and started again. It went up to around 70 and stayed there.

Yeah, I'm thinking of a way of combating that rather obvious ploy to increase the multiplier.  Hiding in the corner until the maximum number of enemies is on screen is a great way of increasing it.

[sparkes]

beta

Probably going to remove the Robotron controls as I've done near to bugger all on them.

Fixed the bug Minion found which meant you couldn't skip the scroller with a pad

Added a reduction of the play area size based on multiplier which makes for some tight games but when it's tight you get loads of opportunies to get some great scores but at any time you are probably two mistakes from death and death comes quickly until you get a multiplier of 10x to protect you from a hit.

Have fun.

EDIT:
Link fixed I've been in Brum all day and didn't notice, Cheers Tam

[Tam Toucan]

Fixed link

[sparkes]

After about 3 weeks away from the code I can't for the life of me what needed fixing but I seem to remember there was 2 silly little bugs but I can't find them now.

I need a working version to send off with an application on Thursday so there will be a proper release this week.

This version doesn't have Salcs music in it I used some CC licenced stuff so I could get a quick package out of the door so I'm probably going to call this version 0.9 rather than 1.0 and keep the 1.0 for when the real music is ready.

http://bit.ly/virus_wars_beta