perspective. In this hour, you’ll learn: About
perspective. In this hour, you’ll learn: About the basic premise behind the Space Out game How to design the Space Out game About the nuts and bolts of programming the Space Out game Why testing is still the most fun part of testing a new game How Does the Game Play? One of the most classic genres of video games has always been the vertical space shoot-em-up. Space Invaders started it all back in 1978, but many games followed and added their own unique contributions to the genre. One of the most enduring vertical space shooters is Galaga, which you learned about back in the introduction to Hour 9, “A Crash Course in Game Animation.” In Galaga, a relentless sequence of invading aliens fly down from the top of the game screen and attack your ship, which is free to move horizontally across the bottom of the screen. The Space Out game that you develop in this hour is similar in some ways to Galaga, although the theme for the game is a little more whimsical. In Space Out, you are the driver of a small green car on a trek across the desert. Whether you believe in UFOs, it’s hard to argue that quite a few sightings seem to have occurred in remote desert places such as Roswell, New Mexico. For this reason, your traveler in the game can’t seem to get away from a constant onslaught of alien visitors from above. Unfortunately, the aliens in Space Out are bent on putting an end to our traveler’s trip. The cast of alien characters in the Space Out game are somewhat comical, and add a degree of whimsy to the game. Following are the three kinds of aliens that appear throughout the game: Blobbo the Galactic Ooze Jellybiafra (Jelly for short) Timmy the Space Worm Granted, these probably aren’t very realistic aliens when it comes to what you might imagine truly encountering in an extra-terrestrial sighting, but this game isn’t about reality. Each of the aliens has its own style of attack, and they each fire different missiles. The idea here isn’t to simulate a realistic alien invasion, but to have some fun with outlandish characters in the context of a vertical shoot-em-up. The characters and concept for the Space Out game were created by Rebecca Rose, a computer artist and game designer who has collaborated with me in the past on other game projects. Designing the Game Now that you understand the basic idea behind the game, let’s focus on a few details regarding the design of the game. The player’s car can move horizontally across the game screen, which means that its position is confined to the x axis. The player can shoot up vertically with his Twinkie missiles terminating at the top of the screen, similar to the missiles in the Meteor Defense game from Hour 19, “Example Game: Meteor Defense.” The aliens in Space Out can move around in any direction and at different velocities. The Blobbo and Jelly aliens bounce off of the edges of the screen, while Timmy is allowed to wrap around and appear on the other side. This is because Timmy has a tendency to fly horizontally across the screen, whereas the others move around a little more randomly. All the aliens fire missiles down toward the player’s car with the missiles terminating when they strike the car or the ground. The aliens are immune from their own missiles, so they can’t hit each other. This is a good thing for the aliens because they aren’t very careful in terms of how they aim.
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