There were well over 100 entries this year which is amazing and I’m sure if nothing else there are now sooo many cool new one-switch games for people to enjoy which is a fantastic result in itself.

I describe this game as a kind of Hungry Hippos Meets Pang In Space With Lasers, but I think the final title is a little more snappy.

You can download the game from the new “Non Remakes” section of the site, going to “Downloads” at the top of the site or simply following this link.

I hope you enjoy the game – if you do, or even if you don’t, be sure to let me know.

The challenge is to code a game for up to four players, using a single button each to play the game.

The game must also only last up to five minutes including the game and any game over screens, etc.

I have had an idea in mind for weeks but only just put virtual pen to paper as it were and started coding.

The idea I have looks great in my head and it would be a shame not to bring it in to the light of reality. I just hope it plays nicely and is fun.

I’ve never coded a multi-player game before (surprisingly enough) so this is going to be something new for me.

Wish me luck.

For more info on Gamma IV, follow this link.

Fingers crossed there is now a version 1.02 of the game that should work for people who couldn’t get it running before.

Go get the game…

I’ve fixed some wrongly sized textures and also compiled the game with the latest version of Blitz3D (v1.103) which has had some fixes for Data Execution Protection which might have stopped it working on a few machines.

Because of the Blitz3D version I’m using for the game now I had to rip out the music playback and replace it with Bass.dll based music playing – the Fmod implementation in B3D versions over 1.086 are totally broken and cause seemingly random crashes when using some music formats, which is a shame. It’s terrible that this has never been fixed even though it’s been known of for literally years and years now.

Aaaanyway… Hopefully the game will run for everyone (fingers crossed) now.

If you have any problems with this (or any other of my games) then please let me know.

I don’t have an Intel Mac or a Linux machine here so I can’t test them myself.

Can someone please grab them if you are on either of those OSes and let me know if they work and if they work well enough?

Thank you!

Donations received = 4

I must say I’m rather disappointed.

I hope people get some fun and enjoyment out of the game – and I want to see all your high-scores in the online board.

Go to the download page!

Here’s a vid I recently uploaded to YouTube to show the game in action.

Hopefully it’s coming along pretty nicely?

My reasoning was maybe access to the high score board of future games could just go to people who donate after playing (or even before of they want to) while everyone still gets a 100% full featured game still with a local high-score board.

Remakes should be free, but hopefully this side-steps the issue in a fairly ok way.

The remake or original game will still be free but if you want the bragging rights of showing off your score and putting it online on the official score board then you help to keep a poor starving coder in coffee.

Where’s the irony I hear you ask? I was looking at the high scores stuff on the site and on my previous games again and noticed that the database stuff had gone wrong and high scores weren’t uploading or downloading for a while – and no one had noticed. Well if they have, no one had brought it to my attention anyway.

Maybe they would have if I had actually coded a game this year though. LOL

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Would you be happy with things working this way? Perhaps COB can test the waters and see how it goes.

Visually I think the game is just about there now – as you can see from a comparison to the original. Hopefully it’s looking like a nice mid-80s arcade machine game or something.

Over the last couple of days I’ve added in scoring and the combo and bonus metres both work now. Bonus points aren’t added at the end of the level yet because I haven’t finalised how it will work although I have a few ideas bouncing around.

As you can see I have forgone the original game’s instant death. Although we still have just one life there is an energy/health display and colliding with the chasers won’t be instantly fatal. A tiny amount of life will be restored after each level but you will have to hold on to as much of it as you can. I hope this will make the game a bit more accessible.

I’m not finally adding in some sound effects and working on the title screen. Hopefully the game is on course for a release this month now, if I keep my head together this time.

If you have ever held up two mirrors facing each other and put something between them then I guess you will know what I’m talking about.

Now we just need scoring, level progression, death, game over, title screen, sound, high score tables (online?), etc, etc.

Not much to do then eh. LOL