Blastaway, a new game for AmigaOS 4 (?)

[saimo]

New features added and a few bugs squashed! This releases puts together a few new nice features and some bugfixes.

[ Show youtube player ]

CHANGELOG
* Added M.I.A. bonus - clearing an arena without losing a soldier awards 1000 points.
* Increased milestone step to 30000 points.
* Reworked texts colors.
* Implemented DOUBLE/TRIPLE SCORE bonus assignment exactly as specified in the manual (i.e. when the Dmewor/Exxwor is killed with the first shot, whereas before it was when the Dmewor/Exxwor was killed when only one laser beam was shot).
* Ensured that the MILESTONE bonus is assigned immediately also when the milestone is passed thanks to the bonuses assigned after an arena has been completed (otherwise the bonus is assigned after the beginning of the next arena, which was not that nice and could also make SOLDIER bonuses useless).
* Fixed bug in laser beams initialization (which might cause erroneous collision detection).
* Updated manual.

Latest build download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

Lots of new content ready! THE CONTROLS ROOM (formerly THE LABS) stage is finished, and so are all the 50 arenas!

[ Show youtube player ]

CHANGELOG
* Fixed some shadows of stage CAVES tiles.
* Added 31st color and improved graphics with it.
* Added THE CONTROL ROOMS (formerly THE LABS) stage.
* Added all the missing arenas.
* Improved/fixed a few arenas.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway (please note that since I'm considering launching a Kickstarter campaign, for the first time the demo is limited to the first 3 stages / 30 arenas).

[saimo]

Stage-specific wors! This feature remained in the queue for a long time, but it finally made it to the game! At the moment, code aside, there is only one new wor (shown in the animation) that makes use of it, but three more will come in the future.



CHANGELOG
* Implemented addition of a new wor on each stage after the first one (consequently, the names Dmewor and Exxwor are assigned to new enemies, and the enemies that carries those names are now called, respectively, Hodwor and Ikuwor; the wors names are now: Akrwor, Baqwor, Czywor, Dmewor, Exxwor, Frowor, Gjawor, Hodwor, Ikuwor).
* Created Gjawor (AI and graphics).
* Written AIs for Dmewor and Frowor.
* Touched up a couple of arenas.
* Touched up some graphics.
* Renamed THE CHAMBERS stage as THE MACHINE ROOMS stage and swapped it with THE CONTROL ROOMS stage.
* Updated/improved manual.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

Dmewor, the wor specific to THE OUTER WALLS stage, is done! (So now only two remain to be done).



CHANGELOG
* Added Dmewor graphics and sound.
* Changed behavioural parameters of Czywor and Dmewor.
* Added temporary AI for Exxwor.
* Updated manual.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

Yesterday's northward-moving sprites were totally wrong and I had also forgotten to give all the sprites their own shadows. What a failure. Hopefully, I've fixed everything now.



CHANGELOG
* Improved Dmewor's graphics.
* Given Dmewor its own shadows.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

THE MACHINE ROOMS stage is complete! A major step towards the completion of the whole game has just been made. Plus a few other little improvements.
By the way, I made a final decision: the full game will be free!

[ Show youtube player ]

CHANGELOG
* Added THE MACHINE ROOMS stage.
* Touched up graphics of the other stages.
* Touched up a couple of arenas.
* Improved walls tiles selection logic.
* Fixed handling of vertical doors shadows.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[klx300r]

@ saimo



for such a polished game that you've been working on so hard I personally believe you should charge a fee, even a small one which anyone can afford but something to help you out financially since you don't have full time employment right now and every little bit would help.

[saimo]

Thanks, klx300r, but I decided to make the game available for free (as considered since its inception) because of what I explained in the opening post: I hope to reach as many people as possible. Of course, donations will still be welcome

[saimo]

Stage-relative checkpoints added! When a new stage is reached, the whole game state gets saved so that it will be possible to resume the game anytime from the same state by means of a menu option.
Side note: I had considered giving the option to resume from any of the stages/arenas reached previously, but that would have made it way too easy to finish the game (and make big scores in the process) with repeated partial sessions, whereas the best way to enjoy the game is to play it from start to finish. Therefore, I went for an alternative that sits in between the two extremes.


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CHANGELOG
* Added option to resume from the last stage reached.
* Refined the fix to the handling of shadows.
* Made various other little improvements/fixes.
* Updated/improved/extended manual.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

1 wor to go! The Exxwor, the wor that appears at THE WAREHOUSE stage, has been added, so now only one wor remains to be done!
Additionally, this build comes with a major bugfix and other nice improvements.

[ Show youtube player ]

CHANGELOG
* Added (new) Exxwor (the wor specific to THE WAREHOUSE stage).
* Made score restart from 0 when a game is resumed.
* Added 32nd (and last) color.
* Touched up some graphics.
* Changed (again) background of arenas title screen.
* Fixed major bug that made the software-based 5x scaler crash (a whole line of code had disappeared by accident).
* Updated/extended manual.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

More steps towards perfection (that is, the perfection I'm able to reach).


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CHANGELOG
* Made Exxwor shoot.
* Reworked arenas start screen (darkened background, changed heading, added wors list).
* Touched up a few arenas.
* Touched up some Exxwor frames.
* Replaced scrolltext with cycling strings.
* Extended menu navigation controls with: [RIGHT] = select, [LEFT] = back.
* Updated manual.
* Made various other little changes.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

All wors are done!





(click to enlarge)

CHANGELOG
* Added Frowor.
* Changed Gjawor sound.
* Added points missing to milestone to HUD.
* Reworked HUD.
* Fixed Gjawor's AI (it could decide to turn when not allowed).
* Fixed/optimized trimming of most shadows.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

Maintenance release.

[ Show youtube player ]

CHANGELOG
* Changed slightly darkening of arenas start screen background.
* Fixed (again) Gjawor's AI (it might get stuck due to a missing check).
* Fixed wor spawning delay calculation (it became negative on the last arena).
* Fixed layout of last arena.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

Another maintenance release. A complete playthrough and a revision of the code revealed a few things to fix/improve.



CHANGELOG
* Made WEAPON bonus less rare.
* Fixed an AI-related bug.
* Fixed milestone when resuming (it was restored instead of being reset, which made sense only when points used to be restored as well).
* Made various other minor changes/optimizations.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[kriz]

Nice !! But what about MorphOs version also ? And maybe vampire support or winuae For os 3.x ?

[saimo]

Originally Posted by kriz

Nice !!

Thanks!

But what about MorphOs version also ? And maybe vampire support or winuae For os 3.x ?

No, sorry - see opening post.

[saimo]

One of my supporters found the menu item blinking a bit stressful, so I went for an old solution - check this video out:

[ Show youtube player ]

I'm not 100% sure yet: maybe I'll have to use a darker color for the unselected items.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

Video-related code improved.


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CHANGELOG
* Changed rendering of menu items.
* Added 6x zooming.
* Reworked/optimized CRT filters.
* Improved/fixed video initialization.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[DrFruit]

Looks good, will check this out

[saimo]

Getting ready for release!
Development is complete (even the installers are done), so now Blastaway only needs to go through the final (and heavy) playtest. Then, if everything turns out to be OK, the game will be released - and for free


(click to enlarge)

CHANGELOG
* Made doors sounds of stages 1 and 4 louder.
* Assigned the menu "back" function also to [DELETE].
* Made some internal optimizations/improvements.
* Fixed bug that caused illegal memory reads at initialization (and might crash the game).
* Fixed/improved/updated manual.
* Written installers.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway