August 12, 2008

Game Idea: Adopt an Invader

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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

ich bin ja schon länger ein riesen fan von diesen dingern (gleicher ansatz, ähnliche technik, anderer look):

http://levitated.net/daily/lev9block.html

ich wollte damit allerdings banaler, weniger emotional gebunden als du das jetzt vorschlägst, einfach nur items/pickups in icon optik randomizen.

bin mir nicht so sicher, ob dein vorschlag wirklich rockt (leute anzieht, geld einbringt).

süss und verrückt ist er auf jeden fall, also los - versuch es! =)

daniel

Krystian Majewski said...

I've seen the nine block pattern generator but I find it less useful. It is more complicated and creates less memorable shapes. Also, I think the a technical advantage of the invader generator is that it creates bitmaps by default. So the results can be displayed at a high resolution.

The popularity of space invaders has been proven by the impressive prevailence of the meme even without a particular reference to the game itself.

And I don't intend to get rich with it. It's only 32000 in the levitated version.

axcho said...

Ha, I like that idea! I've always liked the procedural, artificial life stuff, and black and white pixel art has a special place in my heart from my calculator programming days.

Actually, a few years ago I made a calculator program where you can evolve 8x8 pixel sprites - Sprite Lab. Even without mirroring, such extremely low-resolution graphics lend themselves well to being interpreted as whatever you want them to, which makes the random evolution thing pretty effective. I'll have to try that mirroring thing sometime. Hmmm, I wonder how well it might work with images generated by cellular automata... I actually had made a cellular automata version of Sprite Lab, though I never really finalized it for release.

Anyway, this brings up a lot of old interests of mine, thanks for writing. :) Maybe I'll try making a game like this sometime. Would that be okay with you?

Krystian Majewski said...

Sure, I might be quicker, though ;-)

axcho said...

Considering my characteristic lack of free time, you're probably right. :p

That said, would you care to join forces? I do Flash, and a bit of web dev. I'm almost done with my undergrad degree in Computer Science, so I have a solid programming background. I really really want to see this made - especially if I'm one of the people making it.

Okay. Based on my early tests, I would strongly recommend using 7x5 pixel invaders rather than the 5x5 of the fractal you linked to. The 7x5 size gives you about a million variations, which should be plenty if you have multiple instances going, while retaining the chunky pixel appeal of the smaller size. More importantly, the ships produced look significantly more *ahem* badass at 7x5.

Try it, you'll see what I mean.

This is just a random thought, but for powerups and items, you might try using 5x5 with biaxial symmetry. And 3x3 with vertical symmetry could be good for the custom bullet graphics. I haven't experimented with those yet, though.

Please consider my offer to collaborate with you on this project, as I am quite serious and I'd love to see this made, whatever it takes. Let me know if you'd like to see some examples of my work, or if you'd like to continue the conversation through email.

Thanks again for posting this awesome idea.

Krystian Majewski said...

sure, contact me at
majewski( at )krystian.de

axcho said...

Email sent. Thanks.

Krystian Majewski said...

axcho: Something went wrong. I didn't receive anything. Would you give me your email address?

axcho said...

Hmmm. My email address is axcho+s at any number of email providers, but yahoo will do just fine. There's no + in my email, I just mean to say that you add an 's' to the end of my usual username to get my email. And I wanted to be confusing.