This is my entry for Contest #11. It's a simple space shooter in ASM. I'm still working on the basic parts of the engine (and trying to think of a good way for enemies to enter the screen). There would eventually be a storyline, but i don't know if i'll get to it by tomorrow.

Here's a little screenshot showing some of the enemies i've drawn and showing off the sprite clipping routine i wrote (btw, i thought Doors had its own sprite clipping routine(s)? It'd also be nice to have an "update LCD and erase gbuf" fastcopy routine).

I originally planned to have a good clipping sprite routine in there, but when I finished implementing everything I needed, I discovered I had so little room that it just wasn't feasible. We certainly have some good clipping sprite routines floating around on Cemetech, but you seem to have done an admirable job yourself anyway. The update LCD and erase gbuf routine idea is also a good one, although if you do clever stack tricks, you can clear the gbuf separately in very few cycles indeed (and still take advantage of Doors CS's very fast iFastCopy implementation). Keep up the awesome work here, and I look forward to seeing both the contest and final form of this game.

That is pretty fast!!! I like the random movements, I keep expecting one to go all kamikaze!

Thanks! I was thinking it was a little slow, especially when not everything has been implemented yet, but then i can't remember what other games run at. The player moves one pixel a frame, the enemies all go in fractions (1 pixel every 2-6 frames). It's my first project in a long time that doesn't have the overhead of a tilemap, which will be nice to use for special effects and lots of enemies/bullets.

Kerm: i'd be glad to offer the routine(s) i've written. It's really about the same speed as my non-clipped version was, though it relies on SMC which might not work in an app. Is your iFastCopy routine different from ion's? I've been trying to slim mine down for years.

I'm currently tossing in a simple bullet array to handle both enemy and player bullets. It shouldn't be too difficult, i'll post back when i have some progress

After the contest is over, our Useful Routines thread would love that clipped sprite routine, should you care to share. Yep, my routine is quite different from Ion's, including doing the right thing with interrupts and handling the Nspire and glitchy LCDs properly (all things I believe the original does not do).

Excellent!

Looks awesome to me!

Thanks

I had some more computer issues but finally got everything sorted out. Unfortunately that means i didn't get any more work done on it yesterday. I did manage to finish up the bullets, here's a screenshot with random bullets firing out. Other patterns should work (like spiraling bullets) but i haven't written any patterns other than "go straight ahead".


I've got a few things to do today, but should have some time tonight to work on it. Hopefully i can get it to a playable state before the contest ends!

EDIT: Here's another screenshot that shows off a simple bullet pattern:

That looks awesome! I love shooters! Tho what is it written in? Cause fast work is fast!

Thanks, i've always wanted to write a shooter. It's written in ASM. I'm not sure what more i'll be able to finish up before the night ends, collision detection with the bullets is working, now i just need to give each bullet a damage amount and have the enemies randomly put bullets on the queue and there'll be something somewhat playable.. It might not be much, but the basic framework should be there.

Just sent in my contest entry

I wasn't able to finish everything i wanted to but at least it's playable now. Here are some more previews:
wave 0

wave 1

wave 2


So far there're only 5 waves (waves 0-4), once you beat wave 4 you "win". Once the contest is over i'd love to hear suggestions as to what i can add to it. I was thinking of treating each level as a campaign where you can pick and choose your campaigns to improve your ship and weapons, and that you could occasionally recover scrap metal and parts from blown up enemy ships to repair and upgrade your ship. I have an idea for a story, too, but i won't go into that now.

Anyway, good luck everyone and thank you Kerm for setting up the contest and giving me an excuse to program

Wow, in three days you threw together a game that looks like it already rivals the gold standard for these kind of games, Phoenix. Is that grayscale health meter from displaying the meter only once every other frame? And of course I greatly look forward to seeing this become a polished Doors CS game for users to enjoy. Best of luck in the contest, and thanks for participating!

Thanks, as i was playing (*ahem* testing) it i felt kinda like i was playing Phoenix, so it's interesting that you made that connection, too. I've still got to add in power-ups/items of some sort, bosses, more levels, and some more interesting enemies.

And yep, i just draw the health meter every other frame. I thought it might get intrusive if it was always on top.

My end idea for this game, however, isn't to make a Phoenix clone, i'd like to take it in a more space-RPG meets Phoenix kinda direction, almost like Phoenix as an RPG. Going around leveling up, improving your ship/weapons, picking campaigns to go on, lots of dialog, and an actual story. I'm still quite a ways away from all that

Ah, and i just realized i forgot to add in two sprites:

(a sprite for when the ship moves right and one for when it moves left)

Oh well!

EDIT: And i just fixed a little graphical bug when a ship overlaps the top of the health bar. I forgot to OR the top and bottom bits of the health bar with the gbuf, so it was overwriting those bytes.

Oh, and just so i don't forget, i also need to add in an explosion animation for the ships!

This looks great! I'm impressed with how quickly you made that. Can't wait to get my hands on it

Oh wow, look at that. The player sprite kind of looks like a Runabout class vessel from Star Trek.

I agree with Merth, can't wait to get my hands on this gem.