Alien Horde

General (non-technical) New Apps / Works in Progress
#1


UPDATE ITS BEEN APPROVED! iTunes Link

Well i’ve submitted to the App Store (Sunday) so now its the waiting game!

You are the last surviving member of a UNMC rescue party. Your whole squad murdered by hostile alien life forms. Surrounded, they are attacking you from all sides. The only option is to fight, take as many of them with you as you can!

You can play the game in either portrait or landscape and using either the on screen controls, the accelerometer or the compass (iPhone 3GS only).

Theres an online score system so players can compare scores, lots of nice fx and it plays really smoothly. Im really pleased it turned out this well!

YouTube Video of Gameplay

Website





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#2

Beautiful design. I wish you the best in this venture.
Alex [import]uid: 4883 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2931[/import]

#3

Nice!!! That’s really impressive! [import]uid: 54 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2933[/import]

#4

Same here Matthew, it’s looks awesome. Not sure how to play it but it looks great. [import]uid: 5712 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2936[/import]

#5

Thanks fellas!

Mike, its as simple a game as I could make it, didn’t want to get too ambitious! Im going for the pick up, play for a couple of minutes demographic. Think Space Invaders in 360 degrees.

The aliens basically come towards you, the centre of the circle and you need to kill them before they get to close. You can do this by lining up the alien in front of you and the system will lock on the closest alien. Its got a 30 degrees field of view for the targeting. Then all you need to do is shoot!

If they get too close the system automatically fires the shotgun, which kills the alien. These shotgun shells are your life, so when you run out the next alien that gets too close kills you. You get 10 pts per alien, a new shell every 500 pts and the aliens just keep getting faster and faster with every generation. As the game goes on the aliens start to appear at greater angles so there is more of a chance of them sneaking up behind you.

The controls are simple, left and right buttons, a shoot button and thats it. You can also use the accelerometer or the compass (like the aliens film which its sorta based on) to rotate the disk. The buttons change if you are in the menu system but on one of the screen shots you will see the target button highlighted in blue.

Talking of buttons I extended the ui class to allow for buttons to fade out rather than just flick off and to have a disabled over image as well (the red highlight is both danger and disabled). Also notice the buttons are not rectangles in the portrait view and im detecting the exact shape of each button.

I think the thing that will impress Corona coders though is the portrait / landscape support, its taken a while to get right as it rotates about different points depending on current and target orientation so the screen stays in the centre. It also draws its own splash screen depending on the boot orientation.

Theres an online score system im hosting in MySQL on a remote server and after each game the iPhone tells you your world rank.

All in all thats it, im thinking of adding a boss, but need a good idea for that… [import]uid: 5354 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2946[/import]

#6

Thanks for the explanation. I think I have already an idea how you did it with the button shape. :slight_smile: [import]uid: 5712 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2951[/import]

#7

Yeah it wasn’t that hard, this one im checking the distance from a point as well as in the bounding box of the button. Im looking at doing more complex shapes at the moment. [import]uid: 5354 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2954[/import]

#8

Point inside polygon shape collision detection. [import]uid: 5712 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2957[/import]

#9

Great job Matthew and I can’t wait to try the app when it’s available. Thanks for the “inside baseball” info on the game details.

Tom [import]uid: 6119 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2963[/import]

#10

Mike, was going to thank you. Took your advice and switched to JSON for saving files (thanks for links), it really helped when dumping the full game state when the app is closed.

Saved me a ton of time, no idea now why I was writing my own! [import]uid: 5354 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2968[/import]

#11

Damn… want to buy (play) it NOW … I love the theme… I love alien and I really like the graphics and audio design as shown in the video. Wish you only the best for that game! Make sure you send us an heads up after approval! [import]uid: 6928 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2985[/import]

#12

Hey Hans

As my first twitter follower its only fair I send you a promo code once its approved!

The youtube vid doesnt do it justice, the screen has a pixel effect over it to make it look like its crt / old school screen like in the films. YouTubes compression just blurs all that into a compressed mess.

I did the vid to be watched on an iPhone (over wifi best) as its then the same exact size as the real game when the iPhone plays the mp4 vid

Only got website to do now! [import]uid: 5354 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2986[/import]

#13

Hey cool!

I am going to promote the game in my channels too (after it is in the store)… the Promo Code is a nice offer but I fear that will not work for me. I found others not working because I am in the German App-Store… But my Budget for iPhone/iPad Apps is “huge” since I moved to Mac and don’t buy 2-3 Windows Games a month :stuck_out_tongue:

But then we have steam now … lol :slight_smile: [import]uid: 6928 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2988[/import]

#14

Steam a little to late as ive played through everything on the 360 so far. Portal 2 though, been delayed until next year…

There is also a mac version of Star Trek Online if you fancy losing many hours of your life… Its not official but I can point you to the wrapper for the PC game if you are interested. [import]uid: 5354 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2989[/import]

#15

I was in the Star Trek Online Beta and did not buy the game.

Tell me about losing hours of life… I was playing EVE for some years and tried nearly all new MMO/RPGs for a while.

Currently I am back at writing my own games and playing “Urban Rivals” for the kicks on the iPhone/iPad lately…

I wished there where a really good Magic the Gathering Client for iPad … lol but they can’t even create one for the PC … what a mess :confused: I own about 6900 virtual MTG Cards but stopped playing with Release of the V3 Online Crap.

Anyway… you may laugh at me but I am going to play my own game a lot when it is ready for the iPhone. The coolest thing about playtesting so far was that my sisters 13 year old son picked that game up and played it for some hours the first time he saw it (my sister is playtesting and writing documentation and stuff).

But I am buried in regular work (which pays the bills) so it may last a while till I have more than the basic graphics and gameplay implemented.

I have some pretty interesting ideas for iPhone / iPad games and apps which are not available (yeah… there is still stuff not existing… hehe) in the gaming and business application area. I just got a cool idea for an “leisure” app to… The same goes for MAC applications. Did I tell that I am programming since 1982 and still like it :slight_smile: [import]uid: 6928 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2993[/import]

#16

Matthew, what’s your twitter name? [import]uid: 54 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2994[/import]

#17

Hi Eric

its http://twitter.com/AlienHorde

Matt [import]uid: 5354 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 2998[/import]

#18

Nice job Matt!! Looks quite impressive and fun! [import]uid: 5659 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 3006[/import]

#19

Thanks Guys

Corona has to me, been so much, and in some ways its shown me what ive been missing in my professional life lately.

Hans, I know what you mean about work getting in the way, thats why I did the game, something to push myself in a new direction and have some fun doing it. If the game doesn’t sell its no big deal as its not why I did it in the first place.

Hans / Mike if you want some help with graphics then im more than willing, its what I love. Worked with Electronics Arts and 3D0 in the past so I more than capable. One thing im no good at is characters though, its out of my skill set.

Matt [import]uid: 5354 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 3009[/import]

#20

Thanks for the offer Matthew,

I will get back to you on that when the time comes.

Michael [import]uid: 5712 topic_id: 1141 reply_id: 3013[/import]