DynaMaze - 0.1

Wow amazing! I love it!

Yeah ok. But i still think that when enemies shoot you, they should do like 50 or so damage. If you crash into a wall or an enemy, then it should be instant death.

Nice update too!

The graphics are extremely simple, but the game is charming and controls are well executed. Gameplay is fun! I actually prefer the one hit death, the game seems balanced around that. If you were to give the tank health, it would have to be rebalanced. Keep the enemy bullets easy enough to dodge and it's ok. First thing I thought of when I played it was bolo, with how the pill boxes look. I never heard of the earlier bolo, sounds interesting.

The glowing-when-hit walls are a nice touch.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I would prefer non-deadly walls. Adding simple collision response wouldn't be too much trouble would it? It's not a big deal, I didn't run into the walls for a long time and only did because I didn't know any better.

For ammo, how about you make the gauge work like an energy gauge, so if you fire for too long, it doesn't spray as many bullets, until eventually it's just one at a time.

This is surely a diamond in the rough, it doesn't look like much at first but it's very fun and has a lot of potential.

Joel, the reason I did instant death is to avoid having to "collide" you with any physics against the walls.

I suppose one interim solution would be to a) make bullet hits on your tank take away a small fraction of your health, but b) make wall collisions (and alien collisions) instantly-deadly.

But part of my design goal was simplicity, and I didn't want you to have to worry about health. I'm already not so happy that I put in the "temperature" meter, and that will likely be removed at some time in the future in favor of unlimited fire.

Also, I highly recommend playing with dual analog joystick for very fine fire control direction.

Cool game! One thing, I think you should have 100 health. Each shot does 10 or 20 damage. That would be more fun. And rotate the gun turret on your tank by 5 degrees or something instead of 45.

Kurt: yes, I was thinking of the networked Bolo game which I played on the Mac (and later on Linux). Now that you mention it, I do remember something about some naming confusion between those games, but this one seems to take out the strategy and replace it with straight out fun!

Infukor: I played Bolo on Apple2+ computers in 1983 and 1984... the good old days. There is ANOTHER Bolo game that is networked multiplayer that was for MacIntosh. You should read about it. It has quite a following and is completely different.

Jasper Stolte: You make a good point about the score problem. I think I will make something that after the enemy base makes its first appearance (based on you shooting aliens), then all enemy fire slowly speeds up if you don't whack the base within a minute or so. That way even Level 1 would become quite hazardous if you just sat around racking up scores.

And yes, perhaps a score multiplier for the enemy points too: currently only the enemy base is worth 1x, 2x, 3x, etc. according to wave.

THANKS for the great comments, everybody!!!

Cool game..

Tiny thing. It's a bit strange that performance is measured by score only. The points scored for a chopper/tank/whatever are the same in level 1 as in higher levels, even though higher levels are far more difficult. So for setting a high-score going to higher levels is kinda pointless.

Nice game! I guess the controls are like Robotron and the maze walls are as deadly as Cybertron Mission. By the way, I didn't know Bolo was available for the Apple 2 (thought it was just the BBC Micro and Apple Mac). If you set off in any direction does the alien base always show up?

Thanks for the feedback. This game is loosely derivative of the following: Bolo for Apple 2 (the maze and bases), Assault Heroes (high rate of spraying fire), Terra Cresta (the fixed gun emplacements) and of course Armor Attack (the helicopter overflying you).

As of release v0.2 things are a LOT more fun... never a dull moment now, the game kicks off almost immediately as soon as you start moving around.

This is pretty neat. It is more fun than you would think at first glance. I like the tank's "scatter" gun. I was suprised how easy it is for the tank to be killed, but after trying it I think it was the right way to go.

Another Cool Game. I loved Armour Attack when I was young. This is not a clone, but perhaps inspired by it. Suggestion for a good joystick is on the mark as it's hard to get the diagonals with a keyboard. Game is responsive and the screen scrolls smoothly. Could use better sound effects.

PS - I am working on a clone of Atari Tank Combat in Pygame myself. Presented what I have done at Code Mash this year. Hope to get back to it in a few weeks.