spinvaders 1.0.0

posted by jack at 04:36 CET in / compute / programming / spinvaders

I'm pleased to announce the release of spinvaders 1.0.0!

The main change in this release is the introduction of fantastic music and sound effects courtesy of David Tweet. Collaborating with David on this release has produced fantastic results. It's almost like a whole new game!

Also new for this release is that spinvaders is now open source, with its own project hosted at sourceforge. This means that not only can Mac and Windows users download a precompiled package, now users of BSD, Linux, or other unixy platforms can download the source and all its dependencies (which aren't too terribly many) and run it on their platforms as well.

Here's where to get it:

• spinvaders for Macintosh (made for Mac OS X 10.4, but may work on 10.3 as well)
• spinvaders for Windows 95/98/ME/2K/XP
• spinvaders source for other platforms

Installation is the same as before: The Mac version is in a disk image; you can copy the enclosed application and run it from wherever you like. The Windows version is a zip file containing a directory; unpack the directory wherever you like, and run it by starting "spinvaders.exe" from within the directory.

spinvaders 0.0.4

posted by jack at 09:07 CET in / compute / programming / spinvaders

New version of spinvaders is out. This is primarily a bug-fix release; the main bug was that 0.0.3 and earlier could not run on Mac OS X 10.4; Now, spinvaders is much more future-proof and should continue to run "forever".

Changes in this version:

• This version now works correctly on the latest version of Mac OS X (10.4, "Tiger")
• Cleaned up some sprites
• Player weapon now turns partly green when it is in "supergun" mode

And here's where to get it:

• spinvaders for Macintosh (made for Mac OS X 10.4, but probably works on 10.3 as well)
• No windows build of spinvaders 0.0.4 is available at this time

Installation is the same as before: The Mac version is in a disk image; you can copy the enclosed application and run it from wherever you like.

spinvaders 0.0.3

posted by jack at 00:24 CET in / compute / programming / spinvaders

Another two months, another handful of new changes.

(It's amazing how little spare time one can find to work on hobby projects during vacation and parental leave)

• Cleaned up event handling code; this should fix some bizarre hanging problems.
• Smoothed out the falling monster trail.
• Enhanced alien explosion clouds.
• Levels are now differentiated further. Earlier levels have fewer enemies.
• After every five levels you are given a level skip code.
• There are now "super aliens" which require two hits with the normal weapon (or one with the super gun) to kill them.
• High-score table!

And here's where to get it:

• spinvaders for Macintosh (OS X 10.3 or later)
• No windows build of spinvaders 0.0.3 is available at this time

Installation is the same as before: The Mac version is in a disk image; you can copy the enclosed application and run it from wherever you like.

spinvaders 0.0.2

posted by jack at 12:17 CET in / compute / programming / spinvaders

A few small steps forward in the life of spinvaders:

• Monsters killed with the "super gun" now fall burning from the sky! Prepare to be terrified.
• New sound effects, in stereo! Crank it up!
• Changed player death behavior: If monsters reach bottom, restart level. If player is hit by a bullet, just lose a life and continue the level in progress.
• Gameplay and speeds tweaked to maximize your Fahrvergnügen.
• While the game is paused or switching screen modes, audio output is paused.
• Mac version now has a reasonable (but somewhat incomplete) menu thanks to PyObjC and a proper nib file.
• Windows version now has an icon.
• Internal code reorganisation to make my life easier.
• Added CHANGES.txt and README.txt to distribution.

And here's where to get it:

• spinvaders for Macintosh (OS X 10.3 or later)
• spinvaders for Windows (95/98/ME/W2K/XP)

Installation is the same as before: The Mac version is in a disk image; you can copy the enclosed application and run it from wherever you like. The Windows version is a zip file containing a directory; unpack the directory wherever you like, and run it by starting "spinvaders.exe" from within the directory.

Go nuts.

spinvaders 0.0.1

posted by jack at 11:24 CET in / compute / programming / spinvaders

In my copious amounts of spare time (ha), I've recently been teaching myself both python and game programming using a fine cross-platform library called pygame. I have some results!

spinvaders is a direct descendant of the old "Space Invaders" type of game. This first public test release, version 0.0.1, is fully playable and may even be fun! The controls for the game are described at the startup screen, everything should be pretty obvious. One undocumented feature of this test version is that pressing "J" will let you jump to any level.

• spinvaders for Macintosh (OS X 10.3 or later)
• spinvaders for Windows (95/98/ME/W2K/XP)

The Mac version is in a disk image; you can copy the enclosed application and run it from wherever you like. The Windows version is a zip file containing a directory; unpack the directory wherever you like, and run it by starting "spinvaders.exe" from within the directory.

Please try it out and let me know what you think by adding a comment below.