Blogs - astrofra

Here I a quick summary of the most recents update I made to my latest game project:

• The name was finally changed to Astlan, as in Astro Lander. I hope it will avoid any possible copyright issue.
• 20 levels out of 24 are now completed, with different kinds of traps, such as doors, rotating barriers or lasers.
• The game UI is slowly taking shape, thanks to the help of an amazing local artist who made the intro screen, displayed somewhere in this page. So far, the main title, settings screen and level selection menu are functional.
• I recently manage to throttle my physics routines when the game happens to slow down too much. This was a matter of concern to me, especially regarding the Android version.
• Yup, you read it right. There's an Android version around :)

I will post a playable version including the updates listed here before January 2012 so that people will be able to test, and hopefully make feedbacks :)

Boys & Girls, here's a short alpha release & status update of a project I've been involved into during the past 3 months.

Background :

In a laboratory located in the future, a Scientist is conducting experiments on time travel. Unfortunately, during the experiment, a large amount of radioactive cores are spread through time, all around the ages.
In order to save mankind from a massive radioactivity poisoning, he sends a Robot to clean all this mess, and bring back the cores to his lab.

Todo list :

• Tutorial, gameplay details
• Joypad controls
• Add the music tracks
• Tweak the sfx (that are quite annoying atm)
• Visually pimp the few latest levels

Download Link :

Here's is a Win32 playable version of the game. Please keep in mind it's an alpha version (some of the levels might be unplayable, some are not completely re-skinned, and the sfx might sound really annoying atm). Any feedback is welcome...

MrCleaner Win32 Version 0.7 download link.

Controls :
Rotate CCW, CW : Left, Right arrow keys
More forward : Up arrown key
Validate/Trigger Bomb : Space bar
Back to main menu : Esc

Minimum hardware requirement :
NVidia GEForce series 8000 or ATI Radeon series 3000 graphics card
Intel graphic chips are more than likely to make the game crash.

About the project :

This game was entirely written and level-designed by Andy, who decided to implement a Sokoban-like game with GameStart3D in order to test the engine.

It turned out the game was completely functional in 2 weeks of time, with a set of 50 levels partially designed. He made the initial placeholder graphics with Blender3D, wrote the game in Squirrel, and then entered in contact with me.

As the game was fully playable, Andy asked me to refine the visual side of the game, which I was glad to accept. I hope you will enjoy the result :)

Very very very WIP. Some rocks are flying, the video capture slows down the PC, but I'm quite happy as it's nicely coming along :D

The video currently features :

• Realtime dynamic shadows
• SSAO
• Bloom
• Physics
• Terrain generated with automatic LOD
• Various other post process....

... and absolutely 0 line of code to get this working :D

The Contest

This game was made for a one month contest held by the website TigSource.com. The topic of this contest was to create a game inspired by a so-called "fake game cartridge" of the Japanese Famicase collection.

Our game takes place in a world made of clay, similar to what is shown on the cartridge below :

The graphic style is all in 3D, trying to mimic the clay atmosphere, the lighting, and the color scheme of the original cartridge, as much as possible.

The Game

The game design itself is loosely based on the original arcade game 'Metrocross' by Namco. The player must run in a corridor, avoid the obstacles (barrels, slowering tiles...), jump on the bumpers, get some items for extra-time, reach the end of the corridor.

Screenshots

Video Capture (720p)

Win32 Binary of the game

Download the Win32 Binary here.

Staff

3D art : Francois Gutherz
Animation : Ryan Hagen
Engine & code : Emmanuel Julien

The project :

The initial idea was to make a game for the AGBIC Contest on www.tigsource.com.. Every contestant has one month to make and finish a game. The theme here is to get inspiration for an imaginary Japanese game cartridge.
I have to admit that I'm really fan of these contests, because they provide and carry enough motivation or me to pursue and finish small game projects. Not to mention the audience, and the people of TigSource community that are both skilled and passionate.

For my game, I choosed this one, for his nice orange clay look. I fell in love with this dark atmosphere, and was imediatly challenged to recreate this visual in realtime 3D.

Preview :

Here's a small peak of the game, so far. The mechanic of the game is straightly inspired by an old arcade game called 'Metrocross'. As my version takes place in an imaginary medieval world, I decided to call the game "MedieCross".

This level was designed with www.gamestart3d.com , my tool of reference as usual, with the assets below. As the tool provides a lot of facilities, such as a wysiwyg editor & instances, it's really a breeze to create levels with it. Not to mention that level design isn't exactly my area of expertise :')

I finally put the [Finished] stamp on this thing I had started for the "Bootlet Demake" TIGSource contest, on tigsource.com

It's all but finished, anyway, I mainly wanted to emulate the very original rendering of a Vectrex, and make a small and playable game. I think I more or less succeeded, so let's settle on something else.

To download that thing, click on the link below :
VipeUt-install.zip

Tech Notes:
It should run on a PC, WinXP or Vista, with a rather recent 3D card. Vista users : make sure the UAC is disabled, the engine won't like it.

During the install, u'll be prompted to deploy OpenAL. Please install it, unless you already have it, otherwise, the game won't probably start.

The installer creates two shortcuts on the desktop, one using the full featured renderer (OpenGL 2.0), the other one using a more consusual rendering method, not as pretty but fairly ok.

Controls : use the arrow keys. Up = accelerate, Left & Right to strafe, Down = brake. The paddle is not handled.

The ship have a certain amount of energy, that decreases when colliding against enemies. Then it blows up.
Catch some bonus, that will drive the ship for you (autopilot), or increase your energy (power up). Just drive till the end, for 6 laps, and you're done

Press ESC to quit the game.

ENJOY!

In October 2008, Derek Yu/TigSource.com organised a competition on the theme of the "CommonPlaceBook". A book where H.P. Lovecraft backuped all the ideas he couldn't find the time to turn into a full novel.

This book was full of ideas that screamed to be turned into games.

My attempt for this competition was about the story of a wanderer who makes his way through a surprising path. I choosed to turn this into a famous German tale : Der Erlkonig.

The main mechanic of this game is to help the character to go through a series of dangerous traps. It won't stop, unless he dies. The player is in charge of touching, removing, moving parts of the level, to disable any incomming traps.

PLEASE WE WARNED : this is a really early development. The visuals are mainly achieved, but the gameplay is not really :)

I never had the chance to release this game, so it might be the occasion. (though the game is definitely not advanced enough to be properly added into indieDB).

Here's a video capture :

Here's the Win32 binary :

Download the Binary HERE.