Kingdoms of Steam - AmigaPD announces a new shoot em up for the Amiga!

[Neil79]

So today's announcement from AmigaPD, the same team behind Dylan the Spaceman for 'Kingdoms of Steam', certainly got our attention. According to the developers, Kingdoms of Steam will have a powerful blimp fighting against 30 attack waves through each level and one end of level guardian event.

http://www.indieretronews.com/2015/0...unces-new.html

End of June release date

[s2325]

with vibe of Steel Empire [ Show youtube player ]

[Neil79]

Sweet

[hipoonios]

Great stuff.

End of June? That's in 4 days

[Neil79]

Originally Posted by hipoonios

Great stuff.

End of June? That's in 4 days

Maybe.. Just saw another update from this

looking good for end of June release for this game.

to

fingers crossed I will be able to share this game in one to two weeks time and then finish off the Dylan game.

I may edit June - July

[amigapd]

I had a minor problem with the WIP disk and had to go back to an earlier back up copy - which put development back a bit - however, I should be able to share a working 2 level version of the game in the next couple of days.

[Neil79]

Nice one AmigaPD

[amigapd]

Ok - attached hopefully is the two level demo of Kingdoms of Steam.

The game was / is being made using the Reality Game Engine

http://amr.abime.net/issue_664

and the shoot em up skeleton disk.

I will probably start a new thread on creating shoot em ups with Reality and keep this one to talking about Kingdoms of Steam - so please only comment on things you would like to be changed about the game in this thread and post questions about reality game creator to the other one.

In terms of Kingdoms of Steam - it is inspire by the Megadrive game Empires of Steel - which also got ported to the GBA and NDS.

[ Show youtube player ]

The aim of the game is to defeat the different steam fleets and return peace to the kingdom.

When you blow up the enemy ships they drop points / credits which you must collect so you can have money to spend in the shop.

To access the shop you must press space (don't know if it is possible to modify the start up sequence and make the second fire button register as the space bar?)

The dragon like enemy cannot be killed no mater how many times you shoot it - the aim is just to avoid it.

Things which cannot be added to the game, (unless someone is prepared to modify the source code which I am not sure is possible) is in game music or a high score table or change the scrolling speed or the speed of the enemies - but hey there are always draw backs with using creators.

The max number of levels you could probably fit to a single adf is probably six. I have a third level almost ready to add - a fourth level could be finished in 4 weeks if there is enough demand.

A CD32 or hard drive version could be made with an extended story setting intro.

I ve deliberately increased the number of lives and provided some credits at the start of the game - so people can play test it and advise on difficulty. The main questions being

Should you be able to kill the dragon type enemy
Should the baddies be harder to kill
Should your ships shields decrease by a small amount when you hit an enemy
Should the power ups last longer or shorter periods of time
Should the asteroid sections be longer or shorter
Should the big Dragon and big ship end of section guardians take longer or shorter time to kill / destroy.
How many lives should be provided in the final version
Should any credits be provided at the start of the game

Big thank you to Wayne Ashworth for helping out with the title screen / game over and game completion screen - his name really should appear in the credits.

Hope you enjoy the demo or at least find it useful to know what shoot em ups can be made using Reality - I know there have been threads questioning why there is so few homebrew titles made on the Amiga compared to C64 and spectrum - part of it is probably due to a lack of easy to use software creation kits - not sure Reality is the answer but it is one option to consider if you have no progamming knowledge but enjoy making level maps and graphics - who knows it might inspire a programmer to contact you to use the sprites in a newly written shoot em up game engine.

[Neil79]

http://www.indieretronews.com/2015/0...oot-em-up.html Kingdoms of Steam - Amiga shoot em up gets a demo

Fun, but needs a few tweaks ( MAY BE RELATED TO EMULATOR )

[s2325]

Backgrounds on screenshots have X-Out (first level) style Good luck with your game.

[Retro-Nerd]

Nice title tune. Rob Hubbards Commando (hiscore).

[amigapd]

Thanks to Neil for the feedback - in terms of the two points made in the short review

" the lack of smoothness when changing directions from back and forth to up and down. Instead of having a smooth movement it was generally very jerky -"

This seems to be a bigger issue when playing using an emulator - unfortunately the only two options I have - is one change the main sprite to a smaller ship or two only have the player ship facing one direction and the fire changes in the direction you move - which I think is similar in the original Empire of Steam

"Another issue which I hope will be improved is related to the fast drop animation of the points and credits which fall from enemies. This is pretty difficult with long tailed enemies that are moving up, with points dropping down and you can't get underneath without getting hurt ( You'll see what I mean when you play it ). "

This one is slightly easier to solve - I can remove the enemy baddie which comes from the bottom of the screen - the speed the bonus tiles fall seems faster than on a real amiga - playing on my Amiga 1200 which has extra ram and blizzard - it is easier to collect the bonus points for all the enemies bar the ones which appear from the middle bottom or top of screen.

Level 3 was almost ready to include with the two level demo but I had a disk error which wipped out the attack patterns I had set - I also want to draw a new enemey for level 3 - so perhaps 2 weeks until the 3 level demo is released.

In terms of the number of lives and credits to give the player at the start - any recommendations greatly received.

Retro-Nerd - Glad you like the music - I hope the chap who did the conversion of Rob Hubbards commando music is happy with being referenced - not sure if I can obtain a contact address to request using it - he did make it available on Aminet - If anyone has any title music which they would be happy for me to use instead then PM me.

[Neil79]

Cheers for the reply re:review, I'm looking forward to seeing any improvements for the up coming release

[viddi]

Nice one!

You have to redefine the player sprite postition when turning left, though.

[s2325]

2 levels demo [ Show youtube player ]

[amigapd]

Attached is the three level version of Kingdoms of Steam - number of lives and starting money / credit reduced.

In response to the review of the demo - I have removed the enemy attack wave where the enemy slowly rises from the bottom or top of screen as it was difficult - impossible to collect the tokens from this attack pattern.

Unfortunately, I can't change the animation of the main sprite - but this seems worse under emulation compared to on a real Amiga.

I have some ideas for a fourth and fifth background level - please let me know if you would like this game expanded - otherwise it will stay in its current format and I will return to Dylan the Spaceman.

I will ask if anyone can work out how to amend the game to add music to each level but I am doubtful this can be done as it was not a feature of the original reality programme.

[Neil79]

Feedback on site as per usual

[Lonewolf10]

I just got around to playing the 3 level demo today.

I think it is excellent. The only issues I have are those that Neil already mentioned earlier (trouble collecting bonuses, and switching from left to right), and I am using an emulator (WinUAE).

[amigapd]

Thanks for the kind feedback - I ve now finished a four level ADF version - this is as large as the game can get on a single ADF - frustratingly there seems an error in the Reality game creator - it should enable you to add 30 - 50 attack waves per level but when you play the game each level seems to use only the first 15 attack waves. Therefore I have 60 attack waves I have designed and added sprites for which are not being run in this version - the only solution is to add three extra levels and use the attack waves in these new additional levels. Due to storage limitation on the ADF this can only happen on a CD (CD32 version) or harddrive version (Amiga 500 and A1200).

Hopefully attached is the latest 4 level version of the game - I also modified the background for the first two levels - (variation on rocks at bottom of level 1 and added clouds for level 2).

If there is enough interest I will try to finish the expanded version by Sept - October.

[viddi]

Cool! Keep up the good work.
Can´t wait to get the final version.