As you probably know, last week we started the SDL Perl Game Contest
(more like a Game Challenge, as people pointed out), where you have to
write one game per week throughout the entire month of March!
So far we had some awesome entries - people really stood up to the
challenge! Check them out:
* Solar Conflict, by JT Palmer (jtpalmer)
When JT came to #sdl in the middle of the week with some bugfixes for
SDLx::Controller::Interface, we knew he was up to something. Solar
Conflict is a brilliant clone of Spacewar!, one of the earliest known
computer games, where two spaceships battle against each other while
steering clear of a star's gravity well. This version of the game lets
you play against the computer or another player, and all graphics were
taken from Open Game Art. Funny fact: the initial version of the
original Spacewar! game took approximately 200 hours to be created.
Way to go, JT!
* Asteroids, by Tobias Leich (FROGGS)
Speaking of spaceships and classic remakes, who doesn't remember
Asteroids? This Atari masterpiece served as inspiration to FROGGS this
week, and he provided a beautifully crafted clone, taking you back to
the golden age of arcade games.
* Polyzle, by Kartik Thakore (kthakore)
But enough of rethinking the past - Kartik pushed the limits of
avant-garde this week and brought us Polyzle (or Polygon Trouble).
The player is faced with several colored polygons swarming around the
screen, and needs to click on them to score points - but only has 30
seconds to do it, and believe me, it's not as easy as it looks! While
the game certainly doesn't fit the usual rationalities of a standard
gameplay, Kartik replies that maybe his game is just too ahead of its
time. What do you think? Could he be the Van Gogh of game design? Only
time will tell ;-)
* FingerTwister, by... me =P (garu)
Last but not least, my preciou FingerTwister! In this
game, the player needs to press the keys on the keyboard as they show
up on screen, and keep them pressed as new keys appear. You can only
let go the keys after they disappear from the screen, and the sooner
you press a key (the green bar on the bottom) the more points you get.
The game also features music and sound effects from talented artists
at ccMixter and FreeSound, and a highscore table. Unfortunately, as
any game that requires multiple keys pressed at the same time, it
suffers from key-jamming issues on regular (plain) keyboards. I tried
to provide a workaround for that, but the only real solution is
getting a n-key rollover keyboard like razerzone's and logitech's
G15/G19.
Overall, I'm really happy about this week's roundup of games, and
we're still receiving submissions! Perl coder or not, if you always
wanted to write a computer game, join us on the SDL Perl Game Contest,
and we'll help you take it out of your TODO list and into the glory it
deserves!
See you next week =)
