BLOCKED: A Game of Squares | Early (Early) Alpha

[Spectrogram]

So, I have finally come around and made a game! My first gameEditor game, as a matter of fact.

I call it, BLOCKED: A Game of Squares. And as you will see, there are squares. The reason behind this being that making pretty graphics was something that I tried to do to the extent where I didn't want to make the game anymore because I was already burnt out. My current solution, make a game with very simple graphics.

The title screen!

The game has you play as a little white square (with eyes) who progressively completes frames by hitting the blinking blue square.

The first bit, no real difficulty.

By the end of the first level there is a bit of added challenge. You will encounter enemy red squares (also with eyes, angry ones) who, when hit by, will send you back to the start of the level. After five frames is a checkpoint, and from there you progress to the next level.

The next bit, with angry squares!

And then a slight bit of objectives, where you are given some sort of blasty-gun-thingy that shoots squares, and must destroy all the locks on the screen to unlock the next stage.

The next, next bit, with the locks!

As you see, the game is in really early stages. I plan on adding quite a bit more, and am open to suggestions! If you have any comments, or perhaps some help with bugs (the enemies are a bit buggy), I would really appreciate some guidance!

Plans for next stage:
- More stages, as one would expect
- More types of enemies
- Blasty wall lasers (on timers)
- Perhaps some sort companion-cube-on-button equivalent
- Fight the Magnavox Odyssey boss (because it could only render squares!)
- Some more music

Hope you all enjoy it!

[simranjit]

Nice game!
I like the way the game progresses and the step by step tutorial giving user essential time to get grip on it.

I see you are using multiple bullet actors for shooting bullets in four directions ( like what I did in my initial games :p ).
Rather than using those, you can create one single bullet actor and set its xvelocity/yvelocity according to the direction of the player in the 'create actor' event. Of course you need to create global var playerdir and set it accordingly in key down events of player. I see you use 'switch' pretty well, use it to set the xvelocity/yvelocity of bullet. Considering its your first game, you have done much better than what I had done.

And Let me know if there is any problem with code (although I may not be able answer your code related ques as perfectly as some other advanced users can).

[Zivouhr]

Nice job completing your first game, Spectrogram. I'll give a try soon.
Simple graphics are fine as long as the game is playable. If it's fun, even better. I'm a fan of classic video games and also modern games.

[lcl]

Hey Spectogram!

Great job making your first polished demo game! This is very good for your first real game! I love the music, it fits perfectly to this game with the retro graphics and all! Did you make the soundtrack by yourself?

My only complaint about the gameplay is that shooting walls until they break down isn't all that fun or challenging. But if those levels had something else in there too, then I guess it could be entertaining. But just shooting walls when nothing threatens you is not that epic.

Also, here's a fix for your glitching enemies:
Remove all current collision events with the walls (the script editors and the physical responses).
Then, for the enemies that move on horizontal axis, write this to Script Editor in Collision Any Side of the wall actor:

Code: Select all

xvelocity = -xvelocity;

What that does is to make the actor move in the opposite direction it was moving. Let's say that xvelocity is 3, then when the actor hits the wall and this code gets run, this happens: xvelocity = -(-3); and two -'s make a +, so what happens is xvelocity = 3; and the actor starts moving in the opposite direction. Logically do the same with yvelocity for the enemies that move on vertical axis.

Also, I noticed that your enemies used variables called enemy1f and others like that. The bugging was caused by those variables, as they were global, not actor variables. When the variable is global it has one universal value which will change when any of the enemies changes it, and that causes them to bug out. Making enemy1f and enemy2f be actor variables fixes the bug where they get stuck to the walls. Actor variables are unique for every clone of the actor, just like every actor and clone has it's own x and y. Even though this fixes the bug I'd still recommend using the method I instructed you to above, as that doesn't require any variables, is very simple and short and works flawlessly.

Great work man, keep it up, I'd like to see more games from you!

[Turon]

I've finally gotten the chance to play this game thanks to a Windows 7 virtual machine I set up... Not bad for a first game, not bad at all, I love that chip tune soundtrack! My only complaint is a small one I think the key you chose for shooting is a little awkward.

[next389]

Cool graphics! Thank you for the memories)