Spacewar 2009
Community Forums/Showcase/Spacewar 2009
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| This is our version of Steve Russell's 1961 DEC PDP-1 'Spacewar' video game. My dad and I wrote our first feature-complete game wriiten in BlitzMax. We have been working on this project for about 3 months. It started as a demo for the Fundamentals of Computer Programming class at my High School that my dad is teaching. Please give it a play--we would love to hear some feedback. - Nicholas Download Spacewar 2009 Some screenshots: Menu screen Game screen |
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| hmmm it has a nice feel to it. I like the physics. Its a good game overall but I think a 1 player mode would be fun :) 3 months? thats pretty short.. well it is for me at least nice work! keep it up |
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| Nate, in the options you can select the other ship to be controlled by the computer. Very nice presentation, for example the impressive introduction and the menacing "deep space" sound in the background. I think the down-arrow as a fire button doesn't work well together with the up-arrow as thrust button, because now it is difficult to accelerate and shoot at the same time. Sadly I couldn't play against another person (and my cat only likes games that have mice in them). However I had some fun chasing the cpu ship around and firing lasers at it! In the end I won a few times. It seems that the enemy is very much occupied with flying away (and for good reasons of course) so that it won't easily hurt my ship. Perhaps this could be compensated for by introducing not one but a number of enemy ships at the same time. By the way I think using computer games as part of a programming class is a good idea. When I was following courses at university there was one teacher who asked students to write a small game (in Turbo Pascal) to learn about object oriented programming techniques. But even as a demo alone it can work very well. |
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| Nate: Thanks for your comments. When you have been programming for 27 years, the code comes together a little quicker. :) Foppy: I'm still tuning the AI routine - it was insane earlier, the computer controlled ship just homed in on you, pounding you with lasers and torpedoes. So, I'm working on a happy-medium - clearly still not there! :) Also, you can configure your own keys in the 'Settings' sub-menu. I agree with you, thrust and fire need different keys. Focusing on a video game programming project is definately keeping the attention of the students. I self-taught at age 12 and that was what kept me going through endless weeks of frustration - so glad to be past that! Most of the students are beginning to get it and that is very rewarding to be a part of! |
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| Hey cool game, it is very well made. The title screen and your logo are awesome. Although I didn't hear an sound? Fun game though, I enjoyed chasing the enemy ship around. On a side note, teaching games in schools is in my opinion the best way to learn programming. In my degree at college, we're focused almost entirely on gaming (with computer science elements thrown in as well) but the result is a well rounded IT/Computer Science experience. |
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| fun game! I like it. I noticed it can olso be controlled with the keypath. the only thing I am going to nitpick is the control movement is more of a car than a ship but that's just me being picky. I made an asteroids game a while back, I have it in my signature link it includes the source. It's in blitz max. it's not really finished but it's playable. |
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| Jesse: Hmmm, I agree with you regarding the controls being more car-like and less spaceship-like. I updated the link above with a newer version that has the controls modified. See what you think...and thanks for the nitpick! :) You paper asteroids is nicely done also. Interested in seeing what the Options will bring... To all: Have you tried the warp? I'm bragging on my son (15yrs old - 10th grade) since he wrote the routine to create the warp effect based on a fairly simple description of what I wanted to see and how I thought it should be done. I think it's the coolest part of the whole game. Proud papa...:) |
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