Assessment 2: 3 in one gaming - The making of "Invaders of Space"

BTEC National Diploma in Games Development
Unit number and title Unit 72 / 22
Start date: 15/2/16
Deadline: 29/2/16
Assessor name: Wayne Gallear
Student Name: Shay Wragg

Assessment 2: 3 in one gaming.

Task: You are an apprenticeship games designer working for a small games developer in the east midlands.

Your manager what’s you to create a 2D platform game to demonstrate your game development skills.

Option 2 - Space Invaders 

Invaders of Space 

Invaders of Space is a take on the classic arcade game Space Invaders. The aim of the game is to kill waves of enemies infinitely until they destroy your base, each wave get harder as the enemies get faster, increase in numbers and eventually increase in health. Invaders of Space has no plot as it is an arcade style game where the reward is bragging rights for getting the highest score.

Invaders of Space is NOT a finished game and is still a work in progress.

Target Audience 

Invaders of Space targets anyone that enjoys arcade games and mobile users. As the game is based around arcade game "Space Invaders" retro players would enjoy this game and for mobile players, it's quick to get started and it can go on for either a minute or an hour.

Production Process

First of all i created my walls. My walls are fairly simple just block colours created in the sprite editor.

The walls are to keep all of the moving sprites within the playing area for example, the enemy ships will only progress towards the player if they contact a wall, and the player can only move left and right within the walls.

Then i created my player, i first created the sprite. The dimensions of this sprite are 96x64 

Next i created the object for my sprite, the object consists of several events such as movements and shooting mechanics.

The player is meant to keep moving in a sliding motion no matter the direction, although there is a bug that when the player stops firing, they also stop moving.

Next i designed the sprites and objects for the bullets that fire from the players cannon.

I came across a bug that made the bullets shoot from the left side of the sprite instead of the centre. I did not have time to fix the bug do to time constraints, but it's either a problem with bullet positioning or the "spr_player" sprite. 

Also there's a bug where if the player was to hold down the space bar, the bullets would fire in a continuous line. 

When an the enemies are destroyed they're also meant to play an explosion animation.

 I did not find a way to make the "bases" destroy and lose health, so instead when the enemies shoot at the barriers, the barriers will just lose a block.

I created my bases using blocks that i designed in the sprite editor.

Finally i designed my background, the background is blue with a bit of shading. 

The reason i chose such a simple background is because i previously tried to used images of the galaxy and different space images, but due to the dimensions of the room they were all being stretched in one way or another.

After all of my sprites and objects were created, i the designed the room. I had to place enemies in a certain pattern as you can see within the picture, and also i had to place the barriers created these shapes. 

Full Bug Report

• Enemies do not advance.
• Player stops moving when not firing.
• Bullets are not balanced therefor shoot infinitely.
• Bullets do not fir exactly from the cannon making it impossible to kill enemies on the far right of the screen.
• Enemies do not fire.
• Bases cannot be destroyed. 

NOTE: Invaders of space is far from a completed game due to several time constraints.