Thread: Chopper: My second game

  1. #1
    Registered User Bieh's Avatar
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    Chopper: My second game

    Some of you might remember SpaceWars, a little game I made that I released on here a while back.

    Well, here's another game .

    Note that this is not Redoubt, the 3D one I posted screenys of; that's not even close to finished yet. This one is called Chopper (yes, I suck at thinking of names ), and it's a 2D game made in OpenGL. Really simple concept, but it's strangly addictive .

    From the Readme.txt:
    This is a basic little game I made mostly over one weekend for a 'make a game in 24hrs' competition. I didn't get it completed, but everyone I showed it to seemed to like it, so I decided to finish it. The aim of the game is to guide a helicopter through a cave, in as short a time as possible, without touching the walls or running out of fuel.

    Features:
    -2D graphics via OpenGL
    -Sound / music via FMod
    -Multiplayer with 2 people on one computer
    -Level editor (not complete yet; it works, but it's not very good. Stay tuned for updates!)
    -Random level generator
    -Particle system for explosions, smoke, powerup effects, etc
    -Records system for level completion.
    -Based on the 'NeheGL Base Code'. See http://nehe.gamedev.net for more info.
    -Cartoon-style graphics
    Anyway, enough with explanations:
    Click below to see screenys or to download it:
    Download
    It's hosted on my old tripod site at the moment, as I don't have access to FTP at my school. It'll be up on a much faster, non-bandwith-limited mirror ASAP

    EDIT: OK, tripod overloaded like 1 hour after I went public. As promised, here's the high-bandwidth mirror:
    Download Mirror
    (direct link, no screenys, sorry)

    Comments, tips, flames, praise, curses, etc etc welcome!

    (oh, and as an aside, watch the credits. Of the pictures there, which one do you think I am? )
    Last edited by Bieh; 10-18-2003 at 07:10 AM.
    "It always takes longer than you think, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account."
    -Hofstadter's Law

    Bored? Try my game SpaceWars , made in Allegro and VC++
    or see my new game Redoubt , made in OpenGL and VC++

  2. #2
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    It was a really fun game. I think I played 7 levels. Let's just say I'm greatful it didn't kick you out after a certain amount of crashes

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    really great game

    but the music of the second level sucks

  4. #4
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    very entertaining.

    good work.
    I came up with a cool phrase to put down here, but i forgot it...

  5. #5
    Registered User Bieh's Avatar
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    Thanks

    btw, you can press 'm' to change the music ingame.

    EDIT:

    Ok, in response to some bugs found on another forum, I've made a little update. Here's what's changed:

    -Score now resets for both players in multiplayer when you finish a level
    -Players spawn closer together when a multiplayer game begins
    -If your FPS goes below 25, debris and particles will not be created.
    Just fixes a couple of bugs that slipped past me in testing . The main download will be updated soon, or you can grab just the updated exe here:
    http://bieh.tripod.com/094a_update.zip
    Last edited by Bieh; 10-18-2003 at 08:30 PM.
    "It always takes longer than you think, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account."
    -Hofstadter's Law

    Bored? Try my game SpaceWars , made in Allegro and VC++
    or see my new game Redoubt , made in OpenGL and VC++

  6. #6
    Very good work! I like it a lot. It looks like a professional game, and it runs VERY smoothly. Keep up the good work.

  7. #7
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    Thats extremely good. A couple of things:
    [list=a][*]Smoke trail goes in front of the helicopter.[*]Enemies would be fun.[/list=a]

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    any possiblity of posting the source?

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    a few bugs i have noticed after play testing for a while...

    first off, whenever you set the heightscale on a random level too high, you get a "cannot find a good spawn" error or something like that, and there is no way to clear it. i had to hit ctrl+alt+del. also, on the startup options, you can chose to disable music and sound, but disabling sound disables both sound and music. it would also be nice to have an options menu that you can access from in game that would allow you to toggle music/sounds and disable particle effects (sure they look neat, but they are so annoying when you are spawning in a tight point).

    another thing, level 20 was ridiculously hard. not that thats a bad thing, but im curious if that was the level that "mike" beat that everyone said was impossible...

    and that level editor would be nice

    and as brian mentioned: enemies... and guns. (sure im spoiled on todays violent games... what of it?)
    I came up with a cool phrase to put down here, but i forgot it...

  10. #10
    Registered User Bieh's Avatar
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    any possiblity of posting the source?
    Nope . At least, not at the moment; there's some pretty crappy coding in a couple of places :O.

    # Smoke trail goes in front of the helicopter.
    Fixed.

    a few bugs i have noticed after play testing for a while...

    first off, whenever you set the heightscale on a random level too high, you get a "cannot find a good spawn" error or something like that, and there is no way to clear it. i had to hit ctrl+alt+del.
    Fixed (though still requires some debugging).

    also, on the startup options, you can chose to disable music and sound, but disabling sound disables both sound and music.
    Fixed.

    it would also be nice to have an options menu that you can access from in game that would allow you to toggle music/sounds and disable particle effects (sure they look neat, but they are so annoying when you are spawning in a tight point).
    I'll do that - a couple of people have suggested an options menu .

    another thing, level 20 was ridiculously hard. not that thats a bad thing, but im curious if that was the level that "mike" beat that everyone said was impossible...
    Yeah, L20 is pretty tough - did you manage to pass it? If so, what was your time / deaths?

    No, that wasn't the level referred to in the credits; that was one about the difficulty of L18-19, back in the early days before the 'saving' system with the fuel bottles - he got through the whole thing without dying once :O.

    and that level editor would be nice
    Wait till the weekend - it needs some serious work, and I don't have much free time till then .

    and as brian mentioned: enemies... and guns. (sure im spoiled on todays violent games... what of it?)
    Actually, enemys would probably be pretty cool, now I come to think of it . Gimme a few days, I'll put a simple enemy chopper in and see how it plays .

    Thanks for the feedback, everyone, I'll put a new version up probably Saturday/Sunday .
    "It always takes longer than you think, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account."
    -Hofstadter's Law

    Bored? Try my game SpaceWars , made in Allegro and VC++
    or see my new game Redoubt , made in OpenGL and VC++

  11. #11
    Got any codes? This game is difficult.

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    Originally posted by Bieh
    Yeah, L20 is pretty tough - did you manage to pass it? If so, what was your time / deaths?
    my best time was 20 something minutes, and it had to be well over 600 choppers that i went through (those darned particle effects make it so difficult to see the level when im stuck spawning in a tight spot). i have only beaten it twice.

    i thought level 20 was very well designed. it was really hard but it wasnt annoying hard. there are a couple of other levels that have very long very narrow passages that are just frustrating getting through. having a few tight spots is a good thing, but making getting past a certain part of a level a chore can hurt a game pretty bad.

    one of the reasons i want the level editor is because i thought it would be cool to have some levels that were more like mazes than just a long cave. it would be interesting to have to make decisions every once in a while rather than just plowing through a thin cave and hoping you make it to the fuel before you crash (thats how i beat a couple parts of level 20 :P ).

    you should come up with some more levels that have different twists and put out an expansion.
    I came up with a cool phrase to put down here, but i forgot it...

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    It's most fun watching yourself explode when you press enter a dozen times. Good job on those particles.

    If you minimize & open it back up, it won't re-paint.
    Last edited by funkydude9; 10-20-2003 at 09:24 PM.
    Well, there are a few things wrong with your code:

    1) It does not work.
    2) It does not work.
    3) It does not work.

    Hope this helps.

  14. #14
    Registered User Bieh's Avatar
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    Originally posted by unanimous
    Got any codes? This game is difficult.
    I've been waiting for someone to ask that

    Ok, here they are:
    • "petrolhead" - max fuel
    • "thematrixhasyou" - slow down time
    • "hax0rd" - normal time
    • "iamonspeed" - speed up time
    • "suddenstop" - set velocity to (0,0)
    • "iammissingthepoint" - win level instantly

    Press the tilde (normal console key for Quake etc) while you're actually playing a level, and type one of those in .
    "It always takes longer than you think, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account."
    -Hofstadter's Law

    Bored? Try my game SpaceWars , made in Allegro and VC++
    or see my new game Redoubt , made in OpenGL and VC++

  15. #15
    Registered User Bieh's Avatar
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    my best time was 20 something minutes, and it had to be well over 600 choppers that i went through
    Nice . I got through in about 15min and 300 choppers...of course I had the advantage of making the thing in the first place .

    i thought level 20 was very well designed. it was really hard but it wasnt annoying hard. there are a couple of other levels that have very long very narrow passages that are just frustrating getting through.
    Actually (*looks around guiltily*) several of those 20 levels that you play in the normal game were ones that I randomly generated to save time. That's why they're not terribly original.

    one of the reasons i want the level editor is because i thought it would be cool to have some levels that were more like mazes than just a long cave
    <snip>
    you should come up with some more levels that have different twists and put out an expansion.
    Sounds like I should make the editor higher priority . I'll put out a patch with the fixes a few posts back, then the editor will be next on the list. Enemies will have to wait .

    It's most fun watching yourself explode when you press enter a dozen times. Good job on those particles.

    If you minimize & open it back up, it won't re-paint.
    The particle system is a modded version of the one from my 3D game, so it's pretty fancy .

    I'll have a look at that re-painting thing. With any luck it'll be fixed in the next patch .
    "It always takes longer than you think, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account."
    -Hofstadter's Law

    Bored? Try my game SpaceWars , made in Allegro and VC++
    or see my new game Redoubt , made in OpenGL and VC++

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