Neon Invaders

[TimeLoop]

Neon Invaders

A modern remake of Space Invaders featuring cool graphics, sound, music and some extras.
WARNING: gameplay is not exactly the same as in the original game.


Download it here (sorry can't attach is too big: ~14Mb
https://www.box.com/s/8pq64ow0xkowmf7hvaf2




Images:

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Gameplay Extras:

Two game modes:
~ Classic, where enemies keep going down and you can be defeated either by being shot by enemies or when enemies collide you or reach the bottom of the screen
~ Fire Rain: enemies do not go down, but each round, they shot more bullets.


Game bonuses:
~ You got one extra life every 7500 points. This amount is counted when you have less than three lives, so if you have 3 lives and 7490, and lose a life, you will need to reach 7490 + 7500 points, not just 10 more.
~ Killing 20 enemies in a stage without missing a shot makes enemies to give you 1.5x score points
~ Killing 30 enemies in a stage without missing a shot makes enemies to give you 2x score points
~ Killing 40 enemies in a stage without missing a shot makes enemies to give you 2.5x score points
~ Killing 50 enemies in a stage without missing a shot makes enemies to give you 3x score points

Score multiplier bonus is reseted if you die, change stage or miss a shot.
Score multiplier is applied and obtained from all ships, mothership (top of the screen) included.

Game Controls are simple:
~ Arrow keys to move in menus and game
~ Spacebar or Return to select or shoot (actually, only spacebar allows you to shoot)
~ Escape to exit to previous menu, pause menu during game, or exit game if you are in main menu
~ F10 to toggle full screen mode.

Enjoy.

[Lafolie]

Hi, about to test the game and leave proper feedback, but just from looking at the shots I have a major criticism: use different colours. At the moment you're using a 'vga' or 'ms paint'-esque palette, which I have always found to be ugly (as do many others). Don't get me wrong, it looks great, just the colours put me off!

[TimeLoop]

Hi, about to test the game and leave proper feedback, but just from looking at the shots I have a major criticism: use different colours. At the moment you're using a 'vga' or 'ms paint'-esque palette, which I have always found to be ugly (as do many others). Don't get me wrong, it looks great, just the colours put me off!

I'm not sure what you are talking about.

The game uses full 32bit colors for everything so I don't understand what you are trying to say.

[Averice]

Hi, about to test the game and leave proper feedback, but just from looking at the shots I have a major criticism: use different colours. At the moment you're using a 'vga' or 'ms paint'-esque palette, which I have always found to be ugly (as do many others). Don't get me wrong, it looks great, just the colours put me off!

I'm not sure what you are talking about.

The game uses full 32bit colors for everything so I don't understand what you are trying to say.

I think he's trying to say you're only using full-bold colors which resembles an ms-paint image and to try and use a broader color spectrum with less bold colors. I could be wrong though.

[no_akira]

Loving the Neon colours .

More game logic than criticism. In the original Invaders the aliens didn't wrap on reaching the end of the screen ?

The wrapping means you just hover at the sides and take out loads as they bunch........ bit like Omaha Beach

[TimeLoop]

I think he's trying to say you're only using full-bold colors which resembles an ms-paint image and to try and use a broader color spectrum with less bold colors. I could be wrong though.

Oh, I understand now.

I never tried to make a paletted game.

I was using bold colors because low saturation colors, such as RGBA = {10, 50, 75, 255} makes the "neon" effect to be almost invisible, so I created a Lua table with some bold colors and then retrieve random colors by selecting a random item from the table.

I will add more colors to the table that may look great too.

Loving the Neon colours .

More game logic than criticism. In the original Invaders the aliens didn't wrap on reaching the end of the screen ?

The wrapping means you just hover at the sides and take out loads as they bunch........ bit like Omaha Beach

Yes, in original invaders, when the enemies reach the left/right, all of them change direction. But I wanted to give twist to the game.
I can add another game mode where all aliens change direction when any of them reach the end.

[tavuntu]

I was looking for a more or less simple game to study the engine

[Lafolie]

Here is a quick mock-up of what I meant. The top row uses garish colours, the bottom using less lurid, and in my opinion, prettier colours.



As you can see, it is easy to achieve a sort of neon effect without using harsh colours. This is something I see repeatedly in 'indie' game demos and prototypes. In fact, I recall an article about placeholder graphics that pretty much came down to "simple geometry is great, but using a pretty palette makes all the difference".

[easy82]

I really like this, well done! And I think the colors are just right.

Here are my thoughts:

• - The gameplay could be faster.
  - You should be able to fire more than 1 bullets, to fire at the enemies more rapidly.
  - Faster movement of the turret would be nice.
  - The music should be blood-pumping as it's at the menu screen, instead of the ambient music.
  - I love the backgrounds, the animations and the fading glow effect!
  - I've spotted a bug: when you exit to the menu screen, the ambient music is still playing.
  - I'd like to see the enemies explode into neon pixels when I shoot them.
  - Also I'd like to have some kind of sound effect when an enemy is shot, and the screen to shake a little bit.

[TimeLoop]

All feedback is welcome

But don't expect much more development on this.
I'm already heading to my next project, so I will not mess and loss much more time with this.
I will just fix a pair of bugs and finish what I got planned. And that's all.

Here is a quick mock-up of what I meant. The top row uses garish colours, the bottom using less lurid, and in my opinion, prettier colours.



As you can see, it is easy to achieve a sort of neon effect without using harsh colours. This is something I see repeatedly in 'indie' game demos and prototypes. In fact, I recall an article about placeholder graphics that pretty much came down to "simple geometry is great, but using a pretty palette makes all the difference".

And I prefer the ones in the top.
But I was talking about "darker" colors, not desaturated ones. I already added your colors to the table of random colors.

But if you try to achieve a neon effect with dark colors, the neon effect is not as cool as normal colors:

gMFmg60.png (7.77 KiB) Viewed 651 times

This is why the game uses a defined set of colors because this way it can control the possible colors that will appear in screen. All images are in fact black and white, then i told the game to recolor them using the game colors.

I really like this, well done! And I think the colors are just right.

Here are my thoughts:

• - The gameplay could be faster.

Already done for this next version. Game will start a bit faster and the speed or difficult increment will be greater. I hope not to set it too hard

- You should be able to fire more than 1 bullets, to fire at the enemies more rapidly.

Note that original Invaders only allow you to shoot one bullet.
But I'm making the game to give bonuses, like in Arkanoid, when killing a invader, a bonus can drop for you to pick up. Bonuses like "fast shoot", "multishoot", "bomb", "fast movement" or similar. Also negative bonuses, like increasing invader's speed, number of bullets they shoot and so on.

- Faster movement of the turret would be nice.

I already increased it a bit.

- The music should be blood-pumping as it's at the menu screen, instead of the ambient music.

I already though about that but there is a problem: it is necessary to have several pieces of music so it doesn't feel much repetitive.
If I set lively music, then I will need to find (which is not hard) more different music tunes than with chillout music because lively music can become annoying faster than with calm music. Actually, there are only 3 music tunes (without counting the menu music), but with lively music I would need at least 7 or 8 different ones, and that would increase the game package a lot. Even when editing the MP3's to set them to lower quality, don't expect less that 25 ~ 30 Mbs, or even more. I don't have any problem with that, but some people may find it too much for a simple casual game.

- I've spotted a bug: when you exit to the menu screen, the ambient music is still playing.

Yes, that bug was already spotted and terminated

- I'd like to see the enemies explode into neon pixels when I shoot them.

I'm already implementing something similar to that. I didn't do it before because I wanted to release something and get some feedback.

- Also I'd like to have some kind of sound effect when an enemy is shot, and the screen to shake a little bit.[/list]

There is already a sound effect when enemies die. Maybe you need to set your speakers a bit louder?
Because you are talking about the enemies die. Don't you?