Progress Thursday 4/29

Alright as I've said before, I have gotten to a stopping point and now I'm just fine tuning everything to make it feel as much like an actual playable game rather than a high school student's final project for a first attempt.

Progress:

I have now successfully gotten the super() function stuff working and the splitterDemon inherits all the functions from enemyDemon plus the code I've added myself. Now that that's done and completed, my main focus is going to be finishing the laserDemon, laserSplittingDemon, and then the splitterDemon's 2 little spawns. Once that is completed, I'll just add graphics. To sum this all up in a visual way to help you understand it a bit better, here is a table.

Up-coming things to look for:

• laserDemon, laserSplittingDemon, and splitterSpawnDemon
• Graphics (definitely will get those before the due date)
• A file reader so I can create multiple levels with different amounts of each demon
• A scoring system (updated at the top of the screen at all times)
• Lives counter (possibly part of the scoring system somewhat like how the top down shooter looked but a different feel)

Anything else that I might have said in a previous post is also included if it hasn't already been completed. I have some ideas in mind for things not listed up there, possibly power ups? Maybe even different difficulty levels or game types like survival and how many enemies you can kill with a limited amount of ammo (having the enemies randomly drop ammo so if you are good you will always have SOME ammo). I'm not totally sure if I could get to these steps by the due date, but they are fun things to toy around with once I get the full thing created. My main priority is getting the last bit of demon files created and functioning on their own, then updating graphics. Once that is all done, I'm focusing on making a file reader that will do everything for me so I can just put all the levels into a file and play from there. Once that's done, I'll tinker with the gameplay mechanics and look of the game (score system and lives counter).

Progress Tuesday 4/20

So now that I have the game doing what I want it to do for the most part, I'm trying to incorporate some AP Comp Sci ideas into my game. Most of this means inheritance and extensions and stuff in that nature. At the moment I'm trying to figure out a way to write a generic fireEnemyBullet() function. The problem I'm having is that I have 2 different types of bullets, regular bullets and a laser bullet (2 side by side longer bullets). As you could most likely guess, there are two separate files for the bullet code.
Some possible ideas I've figured from reasoning could be:

• Put both different bullet classes in the same bullet file (enemyBulletFile) - I'm not sure if this could work or not. It's just an interesting idea that I might tinker with (probably mull over with Mr.Howe)
• Put a variable in each enemyFile that says if they can fire lasers or just regular bullets (the one Mr.Howe and I have figured is the best way to go at it)
  

Final Project Update #2

Alright, so I've finally gotten the game looking like the simplified version of the final product. I have enemy ships (just the generic ships so far). The ships randomly change their x and y velocities to make the effect they have in the original game where the ships sort of bump back and forth as to make it harder to shoot them. When the number of enemies on the screen is equal to 3 and the number of Enemy bullets on the screen is equal to 0, I have a number generator pick a number between 0 and 2 (for the purpose of using it as the index of the 3 enemies on the screen in listOfEnemies). Once that one is chosen, I then make him fire a bullet at you.

Things still to come:

• Graphics
• More diverse Enemy ships (ones that shoot a laser, and others who separate into two smaller ships once shot, and a combination of both)
  
• More then one Level
• I'll have a Level number screen and a game over screen (to give it that video game feel)
  
• Point system
• Lives
  

Beginning of Project (late)

I started out picking the game Demon Attack (or something along the lines of Demon something). It seemed to be a basic concept for a game. It had a similar feel to space invaders and since I enjoyed remaking space invaders in Flash last year, I felt it was necessary to pick the game.

For the first day of actual coding, I just wanted to get a playable character who could move and shoot. The graphics didn't matter to me so I just made black squares with the dimensions of the actual rectangle I wanted and dealt with it. (Important to all who make games I PROMISE)

But ya, that was the first day. I got my character to continuously move across the screen as you hold down the left or right arrow key. Then I got him firing only 3 bullets at a time. The reason for that is, in the original, you can only shoot 1 bullet at a time and I thought that was kinda stupid because you really had to pick and choose your shots. (I might go back to 1 bullet only if the game seems too easy).

Later to come:

• Enemy Ships
• Having Enemy ships keep changing their movement pattern for only a little bit and coming back so they stay near the same place, but moving slightly to avoid some bullets.
  
• Enemy Bullets
• Collision checks for my bullet and enemy bullets
• Graphics

Optional Ideas for after the main thing is done:

• Adding a file reader so I can just create more levels easily by making a spread sheet
  

Progress Monday 4/19