Vector Graphics-based Ikaruga-style SHMUP

[Jasoco]

I mentioned I was working on a SHMUP. A shoot-em-up. Here it is:

Screen shot 2010-09-04 at 12.06.08 AM.jpg (54.82 KiB) Viewed 4451 times

I decided I was going to go with a "vector graphics" style. Basing it on Geometry Wars with the gameplay of Ikaruga. A "Bullet Hell" SHMUP where there are millions of bullets flying and you need to survive.

I designed it so it will scale itself with the window size. So I can have it run fullscreen at 1280x800 (On my MacBook) and not have it scale up. And if I set it to 800x500 (The base size that the screen works with) it will look just as good. Even if I scale it down to 400x250...

Screen shot 2010-09-04 at 12.12.31 AM.jpg (42.01 KiB) Viewed 4451 times

Basically it will scale itself automatically. And on my computer, even at 1280x800, it still runs a solid 60FPS. Sweet. The line widths change with the scale as well. As you see above, the line width won't go lower than 1 pixel just to keep it "readable" on smaller resolutions.

The working screen world as I said is 800x500. A 16:10 widescreen. The drawing calls are simply multiplied by the world scale factor. Which on a 1280x800 screen is 1.6 times the world base size.

I also created my own "Vector Font" for authenticity.

Future plans include:

Randomly generated levels featuring different settings. Outside, caves, space, ocean, etc. Right now the level is randomly generated. Enemies are placed beforehand and the ground and ceiling is random. Enemies are loaded when the right edge of the screen passes the tile. Levels are split into 32 pixel "tile" sections and enemies are placed on those tiles. I figured this out the other night after futilely doing it wrong (Loading all the enemies at once and losing FPS with unseen enemies.) too many times. I hope to have other cool things like places where the scrolling speeds up or slows down and power-ups.

Bosses will come. When you reach the end of the level a boss will appear.

A unique vector look with a splash of filled colors. I'm hoping for my own art style.

Many enemy types with different movement patterns and firing patterns. Right now I have two enemies. Straight and wavy ones that move in a sine wave pattern slightly faster than the straight ones. They also just fire every half second. Future versions will have better enemies. Also, they won't be circles. I haven't decided what to make them look like. Ships? Shapes like Geometry Wars?

Here is the first version to take a look at. The default screen size is 1280x850 fullscreen. Edit the Config file and try changing it to your native screen size and let me know what happens. How it looks, how many FPS you get, etc. I'm curious to know.

SHMUP.love

Primitive first version

(88.53 KiB) Downloaded 215 times

In the future I hope to make it handle other aspect ratios as well. Like 4:3 or 16:9. (Right now, if you put it on a 16:9 TV, it may cut off the bottom of the level. So I will do some testing to try and fix that. Or change the internal level size to a 16:9 ratio by default.

[thelinx]

You can't possibly make a bullet hell type shmup with a hitbox that big!

Anyway, I tried the game and it ran very well. Around 104~ FPS throughout. After a while though, it suddenly slowed down and started lagging so bad I had to Ctrl+Alt+F1 and killall -9 love.

I also noticed an enemy or two moving outside the cave walls.

Other from that, this seems like fun!

[Jasoco]

It's just a prototype. As I add features and enemy designs, the collisions will get small. In fact, there are only bullet collisions right now. Enemies will not leave the play area in future versions.

I'd be curious to know why you experienced slowdown. What OS? How far into the level? I've played all the way until the end (When it errors due to no current check for level end) and never had slowdown. Try again and see if it can be reproduced.

[nevon]

I'd be curious to know why you experienced slowdown. What OS? How far into the level? I've played all the way until the end (When it errors due to no current check for level end) and never had slowdown. Try again and see if it can be reproduced.

I get the same thing. I only skimmed through the code, but I never actually saw you removing bullets, enemies, explosions, etc.

[Jasoco]

They're removed every "tile". When the level scrolls 32 pixels, new enemies are loaded/spawned and old enemies and bullets are removed.

Real Edit:
D'OH! I just saw that I wasn't removing bullets. Only enemies and explosions. Try this new version to replace the new version I describe below...

Edit: Here's the current version:

SHMUP.love

Version 0.0.3

(89.67 KiB) Downloaded 140 times

This version has energy and multipliers. Also press S to test the 10-second shield and G for a Genocide bomb like in the old NES game Cybernoid. These will be power-ups in the future.

Some colorization is in place and there is water (Can be changed to lava and later slime) that bobs up and down simulating a wave. I hope to eventually have enemies that either jump out of the water/lava or swim in it shooting you from there like ships or stuff. Also I'll have decorations on the ground, enemies that hang off the ceiling, all kinds of cool stuff. In time.

[Tesselode]

Looking pretty fun. I wouldn't use love.audio, though.

[nevon]

Same thing. Eventually the FPS drops down to next to nothing.

[bartbes]

I wouldn't use love.audio, though.

Care to explain?

[Tesselode]

I wouldn't use love.audio, though.

Care to explain?

The awful glitch that causes sounds to cut off?

[bartbes]

You mean the one that people using my ppa no longer experience and is fixed in 0.7.0?