In thinking about my final project for ICM, my first idea was to take my “Jousting Spaceships” program from my Mid-Term project and use them in a new simulation. This time, I wanted to put them in a gladiator-type situation where the spaceships bounced around the edges of the screen, interacting with one another. I would use the same code to determine the distance between the two ships and they would again react to one another using the “Courage/Cowardice” variable. I hoped to then add code that would have the spaceships firing on each other.
I tested this plan out with a few simple simulations, but unfortunately the code didn’t work out as I had planned. The spaceships bounced fine and they interacted. However, they had problems doing both at the same time. Often one of the ships would fly off the screen after it had detected the other ship or both ships would slow down greatly as they passed one another – then one would fly off the screen. I did my best to debug the code but after a while I realized I wasn’t making a lot of progress. In addition, I began to think that my original Gladiator Spaceships idea had a few flaws in it, the principle one being that the screen, or combat area, just wasn’t big enough for an interesting interaction and if I made it bigger or added more ships, the code would get way too complicated.
Thus I decided to scrap the Gladiator Spaceships idea.
I now began to look for something else to do for my final project. My thoughts returned to one of my first successful programs, the “Sunrise Surprise” simulation that featured a rising sun over several houses followed by a flyover by several Stealth Fighters. I always liked this code but I constantly found myself thinking, “Why did those Stealth Fighters suddenly fly over?” It just seemed like a random event without any explanation. In jest, I mentioned to someone that maybe I should add a UFO that starts out over one of the houses and then flies off as the sky gets lighter. The Stealth Fighters would then appear to be chasing the UFO.
Interestingly enough, it was this idea that led me to the “Jousting Spaceships” program, as I liked the idea of making spaceships that moved. Now, though, a new idea came to mind. What if I took the idea of the Stealth Fighters chasing the UFO and turned it into a game? And hence, “Stealth vs. Spaceships” was born.
First, however, I wanted to play out the original idea. I went back to the original “Sunrise Surprise” code and altered it to include the spaceship. Now the program starts with the spaceship, the exact one from the “Jousting” program in fact, sitting over one of the houses with a mysterious/dangerous-looking beam coming down and hitting house’s roof. As the sun starts to rise, the beam shuts off and the spaceship quickly departs to the right of the screen. The moment it disappears, one Stealth Fighter flies across the screen from the left and then fires a missile off-screen towards the departed spaceship. This nice little simulation is not a game, of course, but I thought of it as a demo or promo for the game because almost all of the elements that I plan to use in the game are present.
In the game, the player will control the Stealth Fighter, which will be position on the left side of the screen. The fighter will only move vertically, not horizontally, however, motion will be depicted by houses which will move from right to left on the ground across the screen. Clouds moving across the sky could also demonstrate this effect. With the Stealth Fighter in apparent motion, the spaceships will appear from the right side of the screen. The player will then be able to fire missiles at them. At the same time, the spaceships may fire rays at the Stealth Fighter, which the player will try to avoid.
This is the general idea for the game, however, if I have enough time, I should be able to make the game more complex. For instance, the spaceships could move at different speeds and they may also try to dodge the missiles. In addition, there could be different kinds of spaceships, some bigger, some smaller, and some with different shapes. There is a lot of room for flexibility.
As a final touch, the sun could be setting in the background and once it sets, that could signal the end of the game. Hopefully, I will be able to write a scoring algorithm based on the number of spaceships the player destroys before the game ends.
Interestingly enough, I realize now that this game idea almost mimics the old Atari 2600 game, Defender. That game was more advanced but the graphics where about the same or even a little less sophisticated than what I can do in Processing.