'space Varments' Released

[ruckage]

Hi everyone,

Space Varments is now available to download from the archive. You can get it here.

The game is basically a score attack spanning 15 rounds plus a boss round and although it is possible to lose most people shouldn't find it too difficult - getting the best score however might not be so easy as you are awarded bonuses for various things including accuracy, speed and multi-kills. The game works perfectly with both the F100 and F200 and the touchscreen is fully supported. Oh - and it has lots of blood, not sure if that was mentioned in my last topic

As I mentioned in my previous topic I am hoping to make a commercial sequel to this game which will feature so much more than this game. The title of the game will be 'Space Varments 2: 7 days of Carnage' and as the tiltle suggests the game will span a week with 7 bosses, more variety to the gameplay be more polished and have masses of improvements all round. I will reveal more detailed info soon but in the meantime I would love to hear what you would like to see included.

A special thank you to Pat for making the brilliant music.

Hope you enjoy the game.

 

[sensible GP32]

noooooiiiiiice ruckage

Thanks for the work

 

[Alex.]

Awesome work Ruckage, I couldn't resist playing through it right away I got a score of 53561 - my accuracy needs a lot of work. I'm very curious how it feels playing this game on a F-200, I bet it's even more manic.

Good luck with the sequel and with all your other work!

 

[shinra]

Downloading tnx ruckage

 

[TrevorBradley]

Fan-f-ing-tastic! I love it!

The controls work very well... I've never hammered away at my F200 screen that fast but it seemed to work fine.

I particularly love the fact that the aliens, even though they look nasty, don't fight back.... I was considering writing a game, StickMen wars, where the protagonist was a Duke Nukem type character, ready to kill all in his path spewing macho lines and wielding more dangerous weapons as he went along, and the enemy were just unarmed stickmen running back and forth across the screen screaming for mercy. Quotes like "OH MY GOD NOT THE FLAMETHROWER! YEAAGGH!" came to mind. (Maybe I'm just twisted)

EDIT: Oh, and kudos to Pat for getting that "Mars Attacks" vibe down...

 

[ruckage]

Awesome work Ruckage, I couldn't resist playing through it right away I got a score of 53561 - my accuracy needs a lot of work. I'm very curious how it feels playing this game on a F-200, I bet it's even more manic.

Good luck with the sequel and with all your other work!

Thanks very much, not a bad score since you played using the joystick. It's quite a bit easier using touchscreen as you have direct control over where you shoot and it does get pretty manic. I used my family as playtesters and it made me cringe sometimes, expecially when my Mum plays it as it looks like shes going to put the stylus through the screen - luckily the touchscreen appears to be tougher than it looks.

Was the joystick control okay? It was added in near to the end of coding as originally this was going to be F200 only as I wasn't sure how well it would work with a joystick, I've tried to get the joystick movement as smooth as possible without it feeling like you have a lack of control.

 

[b._.o._.b]

Amazing piece of work. Animations are so fast and smooth, don't think anyone would have guessed something like this would be possible to make in Fenix on the GP2X.
Brilliant example how to use the touch screen on the GP2X, works very good and reactive.

Sound is great. Good luck with the commercial release.

 

[Alex.]

Was the joystick control okay? It was added in near to the end of coding as originally this was going to be F200 only as I wasn't sure how well it would work with a joystick, I've tried to get the joystick movement as smooth as possible without it feeling like you have a lack of control.

The cursor walks the fine line between smoothness and accuracy quite well. The only time I felt limited by it was with the fast sideways flying monsters. It's a bit hard to gain enough speed to either catch up with them or switch from one horizontal lane to another. Luckily they sometimes fly in groups so they get it sooner or later

 

[Grz-]

Excellent! Amazing game !

This is possible to make new levels (because actually it is very short!)? Cause i found levels.txt in a directory

My better score: 80000 8) with the touchscreen

 

[Manjuu]

Short but sweet! Excellent game. I love the music.

It is definitely easier to play with the touchscreen.

Thanks for this fun game.

 

[ruckage]

Thanks everyone, glad you like it.

Excellent! Amazing game !

This is possible to make new levels (because actually it is very short!)? Cause i found levels.txt in a directory

My better score: 80000 8) with the touchscreen

You're more than welcome to mess around with that file for personal use (though make a backup beforehand) and be warned you could crash the game if you do something wrong though it shouldn't cause the 2x any harm. You can't add any new levels but you can alter the existing levels.

Use Notepad++ to edit the file (windows notepad is no good)

Brief explanation of the file:
Each level is defined by a set 3 lines in the levels.txt file
First line is a list of what aliens will appear.
The second line defines how many aliens appear at a time.
The third line is the total needed to qualify.

You can have a maximum of 35 aliens per round and I'll leave you to figure out which numbers correspond to which aliens.

 

[pferguso]

Hey, I found an easter egg! You can shoot the little aliens that appear at the end screen! Ruckage, you didn't mention that!

 

[gruso]

Ruckage, you've done it again. Slick, fast, polished and most importantly a whole heap of fun. My stylus wasn't handy when I first fired it up, but I do have some fingernails that need trimming. Multi-tapping the crap out of those aliens is extremely entertaining. It's like Guitar Hero with extreme prejudice.

Thank you!

 

[tkeely4777]

I really like this game..this finally gave the F200 a good test to see how responsive it's touchscreen is, and it didn't disappoint. Overall, the gameplay mechanics, while simple, are very solid, and I love the overall presentation (for some reason I kept being reminded of the hokey-ness in the Nathan Fillion film 'Slither', which is a VERY good thing); the animations are very smooth and well done, and the action is well-paced.

My only comments would be that the game felt too short, and also felt more like a tech-demo (showcasing the F200's touchscreen abilities, perhaps) then a full fledged game. If you do indeed create a commercial sequel, I would suggest you add a few more gameplay elements to flesh the whole thing out.

EDIT: I'd love to see a story mode, taking you through established environments (You're a soldier, part of an elite squad, dispatched by a secret government organization, to a small town to eradicate the alien menace and rescue the townsfolk), or a mission mode. I'd also like to see a USB to USB 2 player co-op mode...also weapon upgrades (go from standard handgun to maybe shotgun or limited use machine gun). As for extras (I'm a sucker for bonus features), maybe a short audio or video interview of some kind, or even better yet, in-game commentary (similar to how "Half Life 2" 's "Portal" game has little commentary clips pop up when you get to a certain level or activate a certain element).

But overall, this was an extraordinarily solid, polished effort.

The bottom line? 8.5/10 (*Download or DIE* seal of approval) XD XD XD

 

[shinra]

I love this game, I'm using a d-pad moded f-100 and it works like charm, I was afraid of not having diagonals but that's not the case, it works better than awesome for moded gp2x thanks again ruckage .

 

[Iorgy77]

Heh, archive is down, just got home from work and was looking forward to this one.

edit:its back grabbing it now

edit2: Short but very very sweet 76743

edit3: shot through a small donation.

 

[ruckage]

Hey, I found an easter egg! You can shoot the little aliens that appear at the end screen! Ruckage, you didn't mention that!

Well I thought I should include at least one little secret.

It's like Guitar Hero with extreme prejudice.

I may have to borrow that phrase.

My only comments would be that the game felt too short, and also felt more like a tech-demo (showcasing the F200's touchscreen abilities, perhaps) then a full fledged game. If you do indeed create a commercial sequel, I would suggest you add a few more gameplay elements to flesh the whole thing out.

EDIT: I'd love to see a story mode, taking you through established environments (You're a soldier, part of an elite squad, dispatched by a secret government organization, to a small town to eradicate the alien menace and rescue the townsfolk), or a mission mode. I'd also like to see a USB to USB 2 player co-op mode...also weapon upgrades (go from standard handgun to maybe shotgun or limited use machine gun). As for extras (I'm a sucker for bonus features), maybe a short audio or video interview of some kind, or even better yet, in-game commentary (similar to how "Half Life 2" 's "Portal" game has little commentary clips pop up when you get to a certain level or activate a certain element).


Pleased you like the game and certainly wouldn't disagree that it is a very short, though my aim for this version was simply to make a score attack game hopefully with at least a bit of replay value. Obviously for a commercial sequel I intend to include a lot more variety and already have lots of ideas sketched out. There will definitely be a tongue in cheek story mode to fit in with the style of game but it won't be about a secret government organization I'm afraid (though that may feature as an element as will many other invasion movie clichés I'm sure). I also plan to add various bonus features as I feel that sort of content increases replay value.

I love this game, I'm using a d-pad moded f-100 and it works like charm, I was afraid of not having diagonals but that's not the case, it works better than awesome for moded gp2x thanks again ruckage .

Good to hear it works well on modded units.

shot through a small donation.

Thanks very much, that's very kind. I really appreciate it.

 

[gruso]

It's like Guitar Hero with extreme prejudice.

I may have to borrow that phrase.
Please do. At this point in time it's all I have to give you. :rolleyes:

 

[Magic Sam]

Hi,

Congrats Ruckage for your game ! It's really addictive and polished, as always Scoring system is nice and adds to the replay value too.

Is Pat Ferguson a nickname for Danny Elfman ? The music really sounds like Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow to me, which is great !

So far, my hi-score is: 89 857, and I'm playing on F-200...

And wasn't it supposed to feature some BLOOD ?

Bye, Magic Sam

 

[notaz]

Thanks for another quality release!

It would be nice for F100 users like me to have some modifier button which increases cursor speed, to be able switch sides of screen fast.