lssx -- Fast-paced and twitchy space shmup

[karolek]

Wow, that's a funny game. Really digging the floppy-disk aesthetics here Funny, dynamic, juicy and with nice sound effects.
As for the bugs, I somehow managed to get outside the box, I mean, loose the focus of the camera.

[milk]

milk
Hi! This is really cool game! Really like the aesthetics, mechanics of controlling the ship, attention to detail. (And that's besides the fact I'm a big fan of old retro video games like Space Invaders, Asteroids, PacMan, Breakout etc.) And that cursor trail effect is just so smart, so simple but making huge impact on aesthetics!

Thanks for all your comments! Glad you like it.

1. If You already have rich experience in programming, then in what languages/technologies? Just wondering why You chose Love2D, Lua and Moonscript despite having experience in, say, Java, C#, Python, C++ or whatever else. Not saying Love2D is bad, but all of my co-workers (Java) think of it as of some exotic thing. And just in terms of learning not only new stuff like graphics and physics, but also new engine and language.

I've programmed in a few assembler dialects, VB, C++ and a whole lot of web dev related markups/languages, I choose LOVE because it's what I started out using when learning Lua, I think the most important thing about developing a game is using something you're comfortable with and Lua+LOVE turned out to be that. With my limited experience with JS game dev frameworks (Phaser) I can say Lua is just much nicer to work with, less verbose, easy on the eyes and Lua's tables are godlike imo. With the addition of MoonScript makes writing games a pure joy.

2. Did You write all the shaders like color split and CRT curvature or they are included in some library?

I used this nice library called moonshine for the post-processing effects (the colour split is called chromatic aberration )

3. Do You plan to add new features to this game?

As of right now, no. Maybe if I'm bored with no internet I might add a few things but for the most part since my EPQ (the qualification I made this thing for) is finished, I feel that the game has a suitable amount of polish to stand on its own. I might come back to this kind of game in a few years and make something bigger and better though! Developing this game has been a real learning experience and as a result it has a bit of a shaky code base that I'd rather not continue to work on

4. Multiplayer?..

haha, no way, I initially did look into making a multiplayer game, looked into it and came across several (better than me) programmers sharing their stories of pain on these forums, needless to say I avoided multiplayer after.

Maybe I will produce some more thoughts and questions, but at the moment that's all — had a meeting-heavy day almost without coding — I call it "got run over by meeting". So... Happy coding!

oh man, poor you - thanks for all your questions, happy coding to you

[mmx256]

I've programmed in a few assembler dialects, VB, C++ and a whole lot of web dev related markups/languages, I choose LOVE because it's what I started out using when learning Lua, I think the most important thing about developing a game is using something you're comfortable with and Lua+LOVE turned out to be that. With my limited experience with JS game dev frameworks (Phaser) I can say Lua is just much nicer to work with, less verbose, easy on the eyes and Lua's tables are godlike imo. With the addition of MoonScript makes writing games a pure joy.

Yes, that's what I meant — when you start learning something new, It's good to use familiar tools.
Just wondering how did you come up with Lua? Have you already used it for game scripting?

I used this nice library called moonshine for the post-processing effects (the colour split is called chromatic aberration )

So you did not write shader code by yourself?
Yes, I know about chromatic aberration, but I thought it is slightly different — the further from the center, the stronger the effect. But I'm not pretending to be true.

As of right now, no. Maybe if I'm bored with no internet I might add a few things <...>

What do you mean by "no internet"?

haha, no way, I initially did look into making a multiplayer game, looked into it and came across several (better than me) programmers sharing their stories of pain on these forums, needless to say I avoided multiplayer after.

Actually, yes, I also have heard about how painful is multiplayer for continuous gameplay. I mean, looks like for turn-based games it appears to be much simpler.


I'm asking so many questions because I'm trying to develop a simple Breakout clone in Java using libGdx framework. The game itself is done, but there's no easy way to implement post processing shaders, because it doesn't support multisampled textures attached to Framebuffer object out of the box. So I have do do it manually, and I also have to try porting shaders for my own. At the moment shader does not look as intended (CRT effect), it shows up as a black screen.

So while I'm fighting OpenGL I'm looking for some information about other people's experience. And It's so cool that You spend so much time and created that document explaining your experience. And you even admit that it was not as fun as people think before they actually start building a game. It's very painful process. Of course, the more experience you have, the faster you can develop, and the more complex things you can build. But...


You know, It would be really nice to be able to choose difficulty level of your game. Or make it adaptive in terms of speed at least. Like you start slow and the faster your score increase, the closer you are to the normal (for me it is hardcore ) speed.

[drunken_munki]

I really like the style and extra design you've put into this to raise it up from just a retro-game clone.

Really well done, the style and slickness of the fast pace contrasted with the slow-mo, and really work well. I think the mouse control to move the ship is excellent.

In terms of ideas you could check out the brialliant Ross Scott's game dungeon review on Tyrian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w025kQRMZwA

I mention this because you wrote these nuggets of world-building: the floppy disk, the training program. It really added a lot to the charm, oh and of course the music was great too.