[2D|Download|Screenshots] Alien's Cave

Hi,
when I first read about the current AUM contest I had the idea to realize a simple 2d-sidescroller using only panels and draw commands.
It applies to the rules of the contest, as it does not use any external files. Only lite-C script files and .dlls (acknex.dll and DirectX).

Today I finished it, although with one feature less than planed (no game menu).

Controls:
- Arrow up/down to move your ship
- Space: shoots your canon
There can be only three bullets at the same time, so watch your shots!

Screenshots:




Download:
Download Alien's Cave here

I'm not sure if I'll really enter the contest with this as it is really basic.
Anyway, hope you have a little bit fun with it and I'd be glad for any feedback.

Thanks for reading!
Xarthor

edit:
Fixed the links

Very similar to Atari games But still a good work .

very cool
cant believe its just written and drawn by the engine
good work there Xarthor

regards

Aztec

Thanks for your feedback you two!

@cowabanga: yeah well that retro style was intended, so I'm glad that I seem to have achieve it.

@aztec: Thanks! You can do alot using the draw_ and bmap_ commands of the engine. All bitmaps that are used are created once on start up and then used for panels. Thus the bullets, the player and the enemies are panels. The environment is achieved using draw_line and the numbers, which could have been displayed using digits on panels too, are drawn with draw_text.
If I find some time I might tidy up the source code and post it in User Contributions, if anyone is interested.

There's not much to do to get a nice gameplay:
- the controls are too static at the moment: accelerate them while holding a key
- add some basic alien movement, collision detection seems to be easy enough with your system
- increase the random value of the cave borders while playing
- add bigger aliens which shoot as well
- and so on
- not necessary but nice features, easily added: changing colours of the pixels restricted to the entities by their skills, mines, different weapons,...

Probably, you are more intersted in features which are requested in the contest: paint the caves borders, add a structure depending the shape of its border, generate some background effects...

I'm intrested about the source code .

Thanks Pappenheimer for your great input!
I just added a more dynamic movement of the player and it really adds alot to the gameplay.
I'll look into the other suggestions you made and maybe add a few of them (more alien movement for example).

Thanks again!

My pleasure! Your game inspired me, and I'm happy that I could inspire you as well.

Cool game, and good retro look !

You could also , add some blurr or bloom effect to sprites,
to make them more attracting.
ANd you could add some buildings perhaps ?

Thank you for your input ratchet.
This is several weeks old and I lost interested in taking this any further.
But instead of letting it rot on my harddisk I decided to contribute the whole source code instead.

See this topic:
http://www.opserver.de/ubb7/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=264707&#Post264707

I'm sorry to bump this old thread, but while revamping my website (http://xarthor.wordpress.com) I took a look at Pappenheimer's suggestions and the game itself.
Well the result was that I added the following stuff:
# increasing the random value of the cave border during play. Now the better you are the harder it gets
# Collision detection between bullets and the cave border
# Collision Avoidance between enemies and cave border
# Small Game Menu (Start, Exit)

You can read more about Alien's Cave here:
http://xarthor.wordpress.com/games/aliens-cave/

And here is the download link to the new version:
http://www.file-upload.net/download-1847658/AliensCave.zip.html

Highscore: 34 - I'm pretty bad!

Nice little game, Xarthor!

It's not that easy to get a high score, though. At least for me.

There were only two minor bugs, I encountered:
1) once in a while enemies get stuck in the walls
2) sometimes the laser bolts fired by the player vanish before hitting anything (I think this happens when the player is in "invincible mode" after getting killed)

Game was fun nevertheless. : )