Delphi game (Asteroids 3D)

[RingTek]

If anybody's interested...

I recently posted a game to gamedev.net called Asteroids 3D. You can snag a copy there, or at www.ringtek.com/asteroids3d if you want to check it out.

Its a 3d arcade shooter kind of game that I wrote in Delphi 7 and my own OpenGL-based graphics engine. The game is about 2 months old now. For the best experience, it really needs to be played with a dual-stick gamepad, or a flight simulator stick w/rudder at the very least.

F1 opens up options/settings and lets you map out the basic joystick settings.

Anyway, its now my favorite game, but I'm kinda biased

[czar]

How about some screenshots?

[RingTek]

Okie Dokie

[Firlefanz]

Looking interesting! If you use a better skybox (is it a skybox?) and better asteroid textures it would look really good!

What headers and DX version are you using?

PS: Ooops OpenGL. Yup.

Firle

[Traveler]

Welcome to PGD!

I'll give your game a try later when I get home from work.

PS. You might want to decrease you shots a bit to fit 800 width else WILL (the admin) might come after you and slap you for framebusting
You can change this either by resizing the images in any of you favourit graphical programs and upload the images again or by adding a height and width in the [img] tags.

[RingTek]

Firlefanz - No skybox yet - The game uses 500 GL_POINTS for stars right now. I've played around with a cube skybox but I need to sit down and work out the images. Ya, the rocks could look better, too - I should experiment with some different textures. I also need to come up with some interesting explosions.

Traveler - I've resized the images and they appear to fit a lot better now =)

[tux]

you wouldnt want to use a skybox fo a game like this, try out a sky sphere

[technomage]

For my Alert fighter project http://www.cerebral-bicycle.co.uk/viewdoc.asp?doc=319 I used a sphere of random points to render the star field, I project each point into 2D before adding it to a vertex array to ensure I only render the visable ones. I also use a perlin noise colored sphere to render a nebula effect over the top of the stars, i thnk the effect looks really nice. If I can hack out some of the code I'll post it for you if your interested.

or i could write a very quick article on it

[Traveler]

Ok, I've downloaded and played your game for a bit.

You should know that I've played a lot of different versions (note that I do not look for them, I usually run into one). Perhaps only two or three out of ten I could really enjoy (including the origional). Those were all 2D. I've yet to encounter a good 3D version though.

NB: Before you go any further: My points may appear a bit harsh, I apology upfront if you feel offended by them.
I know the work involved. But I also know that bad cristics are sometimes better than a simple 'good job'.

Ok here I go:

:arrow: There's no menu. People are used to a least some form of a menu, even its only a 'start game' and 'quit'.

:arrow: Although you mention in your first post the need of a joystick. I really found little need for it. In fact I think it plays just fine without one (I also saw this comment posted on gamedev)

:arrow: Add instructions in a seperate file! Especially which keys to use. I don't think people are going to spent 5 minutes looking which key to use to switch weapons or how to accelerate.

:arrow: That said, change your keys to more logical ones. F6/F7 to switch weapons really is not logical. Shift or Enter is.

:arrow: Better yet, though not completely necessary, let the user make his own configuration.

:arrow: When a player dies, allow him/her to replay the game. Do not automatically quit to Windows.

:arrow: I only saw a text saying I died. My ship however is still there. Seeing my ship get lost in an explosion would make it more fun for the player.

:arrow: Some sounds are really odd and appear to be out of place. Try to find sounds that match the event.

:arrow: The movement of your ship is not handled correctly. There appears to be no increase or decrease in velocity. It's either moving or it's not. Remember in space, you need a counterforce to stop you or you'll move forever. I realize its not a simulation so a speed decrease overtime could do, but a sudden stop is just not right.

:arrow: You should never make every gun in the game available at the very first level. Give the player something to look out for. Why bother playing if theres nothing to work for?

:arrow: I've yet to find out how missiles work. I can't shoot rocks with it in any case.

:arrow: Give the player some kind of warning that an ufo has entered the area. The first time I met the blue ufo I died instantly because it was shooting so fast I couldn't even react to the fact that it was even there.

:arrow: Scores, where are they?


The main reason I've yet to find a good 3D asteroids, is because I'm missing the action I see in 2D games. Yours is too, im sorry to say, just plain boring.
:arrow: First and foremost reason:
There's absolutely no speed in this game. Everything is going slow. The only thing that does go fast is getting shot by the blue ufo. But, once you figure out how to avoid it's bullets, its like a walk in the park and it gets old real fast.

:arrow: Secundary reasons:
- almost every rock has a pickup. Whats worse is that every rock has the same pickup several times, this makes it all very easy.
- I have little need to move around, because I can just shoot every rock from where I am. Unless i get shot by an ufo.
- The way to finish a level appears to be collecting yellow tubes. Meaning, I can use my gun with unlimited ammo to shoot every asteroid until I hit the good one and pick up the yellow tubes. I can do this without much risk of getting hit by an asteroid. In fact the only time I collided against one, was because I wanted to see what would happen.
- danger level is extremly low. Collisions hardly happen. And the enemies aren't exactly scary either.
- I have no visual representation of what I've done. No score, no fragcounter, nothing.

I'm not sure if this is a WIP (Work In Process) since you didn't specify either here or at gamdev.net. But I see a lot of room for improvements. The fact that you've not used textures, isn't really bothering me that much. It does however shift the focus more towards gameplay and that exactly what's lacking.

In any case I hope you'll continue to work on this, because there sure is potential.

[WILL]

I've resized the first 3 images via HTML. If you want a hint as to how to do this yourself, just hit Edit and look at how the images were setup.

BTW, game looks neat. I'll have to post about it eventually.