Wings Of Steel 2D game
I studie at The Game Academy in Malmö, Sweden. A school with two groups, one for programming and one for art. The purpose of the school is to educate students that will graduate as game developers.
Eight weeks ago the class was divided into 5 groups and this is a post to present the game I was in.
We were a group of 4 programmers and 5 graphical artists created a 2D game. The timeframe was 8 weeks, not full time since we still had lessons and assignments was handed out.
The code is written in c++ with HGE as base (im not a programmer so this is about all what I can say about the codeing).
In the game you control a helicopter that shoots down enemy aircrafts. You gain credits for killed enemies and with those credits you can upgrade your ship and it's weapons. You can also destroy houses and when they explode the enviroment and structures close to the explosion get affected. When you shoot down a enemy it will crash to the ground and affect the enviroment around where it crashes, creating explosions on ground that hopefully destroys the enviroment around the crash.
The graphics is created in Maya and prerendered into 2D pictures. All particles is created with 2d sprites. Levels and gui are mostly created in Photoshop with some stuff created in Maya.
Im gonna post some screenshots and a link to where you can download the game, it will probably get patched quite soon since the programmers found a terrible memory leak 4 hours before deadline.
Please post comments, but since the game is "completed" not much will be changed to the patch.
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7764792268fbdeaa391d7d881749d3a7e04e75f6e8ebb871
Eight weeks ago the class was divided into 5 groups and this is a post to present the game I was in.
We were a group of 4 programmers and 5 graphical artists created a 2D game. The timeframe was 8 weeks, not full time since we still had lessons and assignments was handed out.
The code is written in c++ with HGE as base (im not a programmer so this is about all what I can say about the codeing).
In the game you control a helicopter that shoots down enemy aircrafts. You gain credits for killed enemies and with those credits you can upgrade your ship and it's weapons. You can also destroy houses and when they explode the enviroment and structures close to the explosion get affected. When you shoot down a enemy it will crash to the ground and affect the enviroment around where it crashes, creating explosions on ground that hopefully destroys the enviroment around the crash.
The graphics is created in Maya and prerendered into 2D pictures. All particles is created with 2d sprites. Levels and gui are mostly created in Photoshop with some stuff created in Maya.
Im gonna post some screenshots and a link to where you can download the game, it will probably get patched quite soon since the programmers found a terrible memory leak 4 hours before deadline.
Please post comments, but since the game is "completed" not much will be changed to the patch.
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7764792268fbdeaa391d7d881749d3a7e04e75f6e8ebb871
Replies
Just played level 1, maybe I will post back. I really like the menu and the storyline
Edit: just noticed You can't alt-tab?
Would make me glad if you posted when you played it a little more. Thanks
Free stuff ftw!
Sometimes the planes keep rotated to our right when still they're flying straight (I hope you understand this)
I miss a save feature, so I don't have to buy all the stuff again for the helicopter. then you could do the levels to be unlock-able :P
but nice work, really like the clouds too!
First, it would be nice if the player-cotrnolled aircraft was moving a bit faster, because right now it's a bit difficult to sweep the screen from side to side when a wave of enemy aircraft comes in.
Second, the lower-right part of the hud is a bit bulky and hides too much of your craft when you go to that corner.
Third, when for example you land on a repair shop, you have to press the menu on the bottom left (return to game etc) and then you get another screen with the menu. This is a bit tiresome, so it would be awesome if it could be made a bit bigger and you could select the options right from there instead of clicking and viewing the magnified screen.
Last, when you're in the city and shooting stuff and buildings blow up, it distracts a bit from the enemy craft and fire. Perhaps the city explosions could be toned down, esp. in the sound area?
All in all, great little game and I love the post apocalyptic/fallout/50's commercial style that's on there. Great stuff!
The speed is set quite slow in the beginning with a purpose, it is adjusted after how fast you are at maximum level. When you are fully upgraded you are quite fast. But I do see your point, a lot of stuff had to be made to make the upgrades worth it.
Yeah the city explosions do take some space and hide enemy fire. But that's the only part of the game i'll never get tired of. Shooting down kamikaze pods to destroy the city. (Im quite sick of the game actually, beta/bug testing is a game killer
JostVice: Thanks for the crits. I understand your crit about the enemies. Thats one thing that will be fixed, the enemy animations will be as smooth as the player ship and also the bug where they come in rotated even though they are flying straight will be fixed. They will maybe have a destroyed texture also when they get hit (like the player ship).
Im writing all this down to remember it, hopefully most of it will be tweaked.
For those who haven't played the tutorial or missed the last info square. The enemies get harder after every time you complete a level. So if you complete level 1 and play it agan the enemies will shoot a bit more and take a bit more damage. There are three difficulties per level. Easy, Medium, Hard.
My only crit (but still a deal breaker) is that it seems like there is no way to completely take down every wave. It's not a matter of speed only, but also 'wave design'. There is a great satisfaction in shooters when the wave somehow matches the flow of your shoots, it kinda falls in place and feels fantastic when it happens! Great example would be Koren65K(super fast and dynamic, but still possible to hit every enemy) and obviously, Rez (slower, but hitting everything is a huge part of the fun since you'd miss music beats if you miss enemies)
In WoS I had a feeling of not being in control, because no matter how hard I tried to anticipate wave patterns there was no way for me to match up against a whole wave and had to be okay with taking down maybe two or three ships.
Also it's kinda bitchy to have the damage level carry from the tutorial, to stage one! To quote a famous qualified critic : WHAT WERE THEY THINKIN'!!
Most waves are possible to take out when you are maximum level if you have a bit of luck :poly121:. Although that wasn't something we were aiming for. But I understand your crit, it would have been great.
Thanks for playing!
But I must say, my girlfriend who is all but a gamer could play through all levels till the boss at level 3 where she died of a enemy missile. You can't really say that you are a worse player than a girl, can you :poly124:
Free repairs between levels may be a thing we can add, nothing hard to do. Just easy to miss in the hurry. Will write it down so that it will be fixed.
I must point out that this is a alpha/beta, not a finished game that could sell in stores, to make this game finished there would have to be weeks of focus testing and tweaking. We only see it as "finished" since it was a school project and the time is out.
She should try Choren!
Will take your crit in consideration for when we will be fixing the problems that's still in the game. Maybe something that can be tweaked with waves or maybe bonuses for full wave takedowns.
Bandages, bandages, bandages
Final release now uploaded. This time there is an installer with the redistributable packages that is needed to start the game.
The memory leaks and some other smaller issues have been sorted out. Because of a new project starting now we probably won't have time to fix everything we wanted. Enjoy!
Link to Download Wings Of Steel Installer:
Wings Of Steel Installer
A little Off-Topic:
Of the five games that was created over this project this was one of the two that won and got posted at the school site. Be sure to check out Breath Of Death also! If you don't have time on bandwidth to download the games take a look at the trailer for all games.
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We have started a new project now, Turn-Based Strategy. This project is also 8 weeks long and will be finished just before summer break. Be sure to keep a lookout for them!
The Game Academy Game Site