Posted October 15, 2023 by Donnyron
#release #update #demo
Glad to see that I got a couple of responses to the feedback-form, these have been quite helpful in reaffirming some of my suspicions as to issues with Space Infiltrator.
Namely, that the scrolling was too slow. In the Unity Editor, the framerate was unlocked and was running quite high and therefore the scrolling (which is tied to the framerate (please don't hurt me)) was a good speed.
However, when I made a build and ran it on Itch.io I found that it was a lot slower. I imagine that being embedded in a browser is not good for frame-rate...
Regardless, the feedback I got did confirm this was an issue for at least 2 other people, so that was good to hear. Well, not "good" but useful.
What was also useful and not "good" was that one of the testers discovered that the End Zone I have at the end of the level didn't work as intended and just made the game hang instead. This wasn't an issue before I built the game, and then it was. I discovered the cause of the issue and I will have to make sure I test everything properly before forgetting I added them in the future.
(For those interested, I had implemented a script to restart the level if the player died. To do this I checked if the player was Destroyed. However, when the scene got reloaded in the End Zone, the player got Destroyed and therefore it changed the scene again, and then again, and again, etc. TL;DR: I caused an infinite loop at the end of the level...)
I also found that most of the game seemed to be OK as it is and there was mostly just a slight desire for more enemies and more speed. I intend to add more enemies in the future, and the speed will be faster now. I am particularly pleased to see that people enjoy the Black-and-White aesthetic of the game as I quite liked it.
So apparently when I wrote that I would post an Alpha 1.0 devlog in my previous post, I was lying. I suppose I just forgot I said that, but it turns out that I never did it. The Past cannot see that which had not happened yet, so it could not have been helped I suppose. Irregardless, I am here to tell you about Alpha 2! (I dropped the '.0' as it looked silly.)
I have made the level faster. I have made player bullets s l o w e r. I have made a whole title screen. I even made a couple of chiptune tracks (Using Deflemask [3] for anybody interested.)
Basically, I have added more stuff to "polish" this little DEMO (That is what I'm calling it now).
Unfortunately for me, the contents of this DEMO is what I'm being assessed on, and so I am missing a fair amount of stuff from my concept statement. What is largely missing is the Creepypasta aspect of the game. The simple reason for that is that I didn't finish the actual game part of the game first. I also haven't made many of the real levels yet. I have the test level (level 0) and the first level of the outside area and that is about it. I also haven't made more than one enemy type, or more than one building type. I have made a nice Title Screen, and a High Score screen. I didn't finish implementing Hi-Scores; The scores are dynamic, I just haven't added the ability to save your score and add it to the table...
The reasons for most of these exclusions is simply that I ran out of time. I also probably gave myself too many things to work on, or too much scope. The core concept was fairly achievable, and I believe I achieved it (minus the creepypasta), but the number of levels and enemies and buildings was not met, and that is OK. I didn't expect to 100% finish my game before now. I have made a good DEMO that shows off the core gameplay of my game and I am happy with that. I made all of it by myself with some small help from my lecturers, and a little bit more help from the internet (mostly the Unity Scripting API. For the High Score stuff mostly reference [1]). I didn't even resort to using ChatGPT or GitHub CoPilot, or some other AI assistant.
This is all OK though, because I don't plan to abandon this game here. No, rather I intend to eventually finish it. Keyword: eventually. I don't know if I will be able to work on this in the future for another Uni Unit, but if I can't it will be finished slower (I have to study you know?)
It may be the case that I have to work on this in just my free time, which is fine as I quite like this project, it just means work will be slow. (Slower than I already was? Impossible!)
I am required to post an asset list, so here it is:
I believe those are all the important or notable assets I have in my game. I made the game, and these are what I can think of, so if there are any more ones that deserved mentioning I will feel a little silly... (I guess I'll find out in my assignment feedback.)
SPACE INFILTRATOR is a game in which you must defeat enemy spaceships and destroy their buildings as you fight your way to the center of their planet to destroy them for good. These aliens are the enemies of Earth and it is your duty to remove their threat from your sector of the galaxy. The creatures of Planet Γε4 are no match for the might of the Terrarian Empire.
Controls:
W/A/S/D - Movement (Up/Left/Down/Right)
Space - FIRE (Shoots bullets that move horizontally)
B - BOMB (Drops an arcing projectile useful for hitting buildings)
Gaining Score:
References:
[1]
https://gamedevbeginner.com/how-to-keep-score-in-unity-with-loading-and-saving/#..
I derived the following scripts from the source above:
(I wasn't able to get the HighScore feature working before the submission time, so these scripts go mostly unused aside from player score in-game and the dummy HighScore screen.)
[2]
https://www.fontspace.com/vector-battle-font-f3349
I used this Vector Graphics Font.
[3]
https://www.deflemask.com
I used this tracker to make the music in the game.