Vector Wars

I did not try it yet, but just by looking at you game I can tell it's pretty good!

I've discovered Geometry Wars on the DS of a friend.
I told him, "it could be cool to rewrite it using Python".
I come here, and I see it's already done :)

And it's very well done !
Congratulation.

Major release coming out next month or the month after! I'm completely rewriting the game.

Thanks! I'm going to add some joystick support, controls customization, and tons of stuff. And I'm definitely going to do some serious optimization for this game.

Pretty Fun. Controls were a little tough at first (The fact that the ship spins made me think it was forward/backward/spin left/spin right controls) but it's smooth once you get used to it.
The problem is that my computer starts out the game at about 25 FPS, and I guess it would only get worse if I played longer. Maybe there could be an option to not use special effects?
My opinion is that you can throw out the grid. There's enough enemies around to know you're moving.

Something you might want to fix is the amount of processor it takes during pause. The way you coded pause is little confusing, but it seems as if you're constantly drawing everything, but not computing anything new. An easy fix is just to drop the FPS to 1 when it's paused.

Hey guys! Thanks for all the great comments! There will be another release pretty soon, with some updated graphics by Jordan Trudgett (tgfcoder). Also, Otto Salminen has made a mod of it and some incredible graphics, so look for a mod of this game called "Infector Wars" pretty soon as well!

Very nice game, good work. One thing that annoyed me was lack of joystick support, so I took the liberty of adding it myself, I hope you don't mind. Source for the joystick enabled version is located at http://pseudosoftware.net/works/VectorWarsa0.6j.zip .
You can toggle between Joystick and Keyboard modes by hitting 'j' on the menu screen. It should work with any dual-analog gamepad.

Luca: I decided to add user-configurable grid sizes, since some other people don't like the size. You're welcome for the game! Thank YOU for the comments!

pymike wrote:
>1) Do you WANT to disable the grid?
>It's pretty fundamental to have the grid
>in the a0.6 release so that you know you're moving.

Mmhhh... ok, you are right! May be that grid quads are only too small? But I think this is my personal taste!

Thank you again for the game!

Sweet! I'll be gone later but if I have time today I'll update it.
To put in the controls section, when you put in the description of a project, type <h3>Controls</h3>
(controls here)

Hey Mike, how'd you add the "Controls" section?

Musical scores will be in today. :) [it's currently 6:22 am here]

Ooooooohh don't you worry! By the time it gets to v1.0 you'll be asking for something easier ;-) by the way nice score :)

My last score in the 0.2 version is about 87,000 points, level 10. In the new version 0.6 I currently have 185,765 points, level 11.

What you have done with this game, pymike?!

You destroy the difficulty and the "oh **** feeling" with your new and improved AI and also the grid!

I beseech you to bring back the kind of experience and difficulty feeling that I have with the last game!

Jordan: Wow! You're REALLY good that this! You're high is 4 times higher than mine! :D I'm very happy to see that you like to play it that much!!!

Yep, I started noticing how annoying it is to have to start beating a level over and over again. That will FOR SURE be fixed in the next release. Sorry about the big download. I found some temporary music thats only 30 seconds to put in instead until yours is ready. (If I release again before it's ready)


Luca:
1) Do you WANT to disable the grid? It's pretty fundamental to have the grid in the a0.6 release so that you know you're moving.
2)In the next release the enemies will have a little more variety. eg, some will shoot, some move around in circles, some will probably dodge your shots (if I can do that. that'll be a tough job), and some of them will explode differently.


Thanks everyone for the GREAT comments! It's really motivated me to keep working on it!

I liked the last release but this one is very good! Only come notes and suggestions.
1) there's a way to disable the screen grid?
2) The new AI make the game simpler. In facts I found more difficult the last release. The enemies ofter group togheter inline and then is very simple to destroy them all.

Oh, and thankyou for implementing pixel-perfect collision detection. It saved my live(s) many a time in those hairy situations levels 12+. XD

One more thing, it's really annoying having to restart a WHOLE level when you die, like, when there's 14 of those giant fan things, it really takes it's toll :P You should start with 150% of the baddies you were left with when you died. So, if I died with 10 green things, 4 blue things and 6 orange things, there'd be 15 green things, 6 blue things and 9 orange things.. That sort of thing. I dunno, it's great though! One last thing, when you fire diagonally it seems to fire 4 shots, sideways, only three (visible.) Is there a reason for this?

Wow, (in reference to new changes) I can't wait to try this (but it's a fairly big download when your internet's been throttled to 64 kbps.)

Here's my screenshot of getting to level 14 (so, completing 13 levels) on a0.2.
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/1117/13vwrg8.jpg

New release is out!

Oh by the way. CRAZY HIGH SCORE! And level SEVEN? My high is 16,880 level 3. You must have played Geometry Wars before or something... ;-)

Thanks! Actually I got that grid for the soon to come SCROLLING CAMERA! The reason the grid isn't drawn right now is alpha slows things down ALOT. When it's in it will only look like a grid, with no alpha. Thanks for all the tips! alpha 0.6 coming out tonight or tomorrow.

Oh, and by the way, I think you should blit grid(), with alpha of 45. I enjoyed playing with that on :) Perhaps later, you could have the grid shimmer, etc. And perhaps command-line switched/options menu to toggle them.

Addictive :) My highest score is 68625/Level 7 (first play.)

I liked: the sounds. Works well. The effects, really good particle effects.
The enemies, they are varied in appearance :)
A few improvements: the enemies should do different things, rather than just take up different amounts of space =) Eg, one could gravitate to you, one could dodge bullets, etc. The coin/credits should be dimmer (alpha down) When I'm concentrating on the other enemies, it sometimes scares the crap outta me when little yellow triangles fly towards me :P And obviously, more weapons :P I guess thats planned :)

I was running at a nice 38 FPS down to 34 when I got to level 7. I imagine that 50 FPS would be a lot more hectic...

3/5 for version a0.2. Will begin work on music in the next few days.

Awesome effects!

If I may suggest a few things...

1 - Change the colour of those green boxes. They are hard to tell apart from your ship when you're in the thick of things.

2 - Make it so that you never spawn on top of or right beside an enemy after you die.

Thanks alot! New release! Download now! Major changes!

Wow, really nice work! Feels really polished even in alpha... I haven't played the original geometry wars, but I have a friend who's always talking about it. I'll have to show him this!