1 Day Game #1
Over the weekend I had a little spare time and decided to try out Haaf’s Game Engine (HGE). After spending the last year working on BSG and as long as I can remember on CIC I decided to make a small game that would take less than a day. The finished product came in at 13 hours and is a “Geometry Wars” style of game with a bit of a twist. I’ve aptly called the game “Game1“.
Below is a breakdown of the hours it took to create:
| Description | Hours |
| Initial setup of core, engine, game and entity | 1.5 |
| More initial setup, movement, firing with bounding | 2 |
| Player, Bullet, Collision detection | 1 |
| Player dir and enemy | 0.5 |
| Enemy moving and firing on enemy | 0.5 |
| Reflect bullets based on angle | 1 |
| Random level generation | 1 |
| Fixing bugs | 1 |
| Adding gameplay and ui | 1 |
| Leaderboard, more gameplay | 1.5 |
| Encryption | 1 |
| Finalising and preparation for launch | 1 |
I’m quite impressed with HGE’s ease of use and will be looking to do a few more small games like this in the coming weeks. The features of note are:
- Dynamically generated levels using a seeded random number generator. This means that there are an unlimited number of levels that play the same way for every player.
- Online scoreboard. Your scores are uploaded at the end of the game and you can compare with other players. Simple encryption was used to stop abuse.
If anyone is really interested in the source code please add a comment and I may look at releasing it in the near future. I’d be interested in any comments or bugs. My main aim was to keep the development short so I missed out a few features I’d like to have added. These include audio and animations when the objects die.
Download the game below and let me know what you think.
Controls:
wasd – movement
LMB – fire
RMB – shield
All enemies are red.
Reflected bullets become change to the reflectors team.
The uploaded score simply uses your computer name.
Thanks to Drealmer’s comments there are now a few more keys:
arrows – also for movement
zqsd – also can be used for movement on AZERTY keyboards.
Hello,
I tested your game, but I have two problems with it. First one is the keyboard layout; as I have an AZERTY keyboard, the movement keys are mixed up. Second one is that it is choppy: it seems to run smoothly for one second, then freezes for 100 ms, then runs for one sec, and so on. I am gonna try again on another computer tomorrow and check if I get the same.
I never manage to properly finish any of my personnal projects, that makes me very impressed with what you acheived here in such a small amount of time, congratulations
This game is better than Company of Heroes.
Drealmer-
Thanks for the feedback, please let me know what you find with your investigations. Can you let me know what key config would suit you and I’ll add it as a feature.
Also what PC are you running? Can you please press alt-enter to put it in full screen and let me know if it is still choppy.
Thanks.
Hello,
About the framerate issue, I only have it at home in windowed mode (P4 2.6 Ghz HT, Radeon 9600 pro, Win XP), in fullscreen it runs fine. I also tried on my PC at work (P4 3 Ghz dual core, GeForce 7800 XT, Win XP), and there it works fine in both windowed and fullscreen modes. It is probably nothing more than something funny with one of my background apps, don’t worry.
Concerning the keyboard layout, it would be great with the arrow keys or with ZQSD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZERTY). With that I will make it to the hi-score table, I am sure
Keep up the good work with your blog, you are one of my favorite “coffee break” readings!
Drealmer-
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll add an option for your keyboard as soon as I have time. I have never heard of the AZERTY keyboard so thanks for letting me know. I’ll also look at adding the arrow keys as well as any non-FPS players may prefer them.
You are right about the windowed mode being interrupted with some background processes. If you figure out what it is please let me know, otherwise just stick with full screen. I’ve found messenger to be a bad culprit as it refreshes it’s little status window quite often.
My Celeron 1GHz, 640MB RAM, GeForce FX5200 (v93.71) running Win2K loaded the game then hung, requiring a hard reset. Makes me sad…
My laptop is a Pentium II and does not have DirectX. Makes me sad…
The game didn’t run on my computer, not sure what the problem is.
“The application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix the problem.”
Hey thank you Doolwind! With your changes to the keyboard input, I made it to the scoreboard
I think it is a bit frustrating that sometimes enemies can spawn really close to you, there is no way you can avoid them.
I was thinking… this game is impossible, and then I read about using the arrow keys to move. I suggest a separate high scores table for people who don’t move their ship.
Hey there Doolwind. Saw your post over at Haaf’s Game Engine and tried Game 1.. loved it! Takes me back to the days of berserk, great job! Positive reinforcement! Additional gamer exclamation! And yes! Yes, today I claimed the high score! Kellie is queen of Game 1 no more!
The black box from the blue circle has been recovered. There’s a screenshot of its last moments if you click on my name. I’m sorry I convereted it to .jpg before adding in a witty “last remark” speeech bubble coming off it. Hindsight 20/20 yada yada
Please make the source code available at your earliest convenience, your majesty. I, too, wear the lens…
Read your blog… all of it (zzzZZZzzz j/k). We seem to share alot of the the same sentiments about games. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you realize it’s just as easy to get bored of a multi-million dollar professionally developed game as it is of a simple 2d game. I hope to hear more from you over at H’sGE.
Matt-
I’m glad you enjoyed the game, and I noticed Kellie’s score had been beaten, well done
. I might have to have a go at knocking you from your throne!
I’ll look into releasing the source soon. I have another idea for a game, which will take a little more time than 1 day, so I’ll see if I can come up with another 1 day game soon.