[Release] Return of Dr. Destructo

[Release] Return of Dr. Destructo

Postby MaxEd » 18 Apr 2015, 08:44

Return of Dr. Destructo is a remake of Island of Dr. Destructo, a ZX Spectrum game from 1987. I have been working on it for the past three years on-and-off, and now, finally, it is released. The game code is licensed under MIT license, and art assets are CC-BY-SA.

In this game, you play as a fighter pilot with a goal of stopping the Dr. Destructo from completing his evil plans. To do this, you must complete 21 levels, battling in the air with 15 types of enemies. Each level presents you with some target: a battleship, an island, or even a space carrier, that you must sink! But your place has only one bomb, and your gun is ineffective against heavily armored targets. So, to blow holes in enemy's vessels and structures, you have to shoot down various planes and helicopters he sends to battle you, and drop them onto the target.

In my childhood, when I played the original game, it was amazing to see player's actions to have a permanent, non-fixed effect on level: a part of level's target disappeared after each explosion! So, I decided to remake it for PC, even though its gameplay gets a little tedious (it seems like the developers originally planned for 5 levels, but something made them change their minds, and tuck on 16 more). I tried to make it a little more fun by adding a storyline. It's not much, but I hope it may make you like the game more! :)

So, enough words! You can go to game's site and download it now, for Windows, Linux or MacOS X, or use quick links at the end of this post. The source code for the game is located at GitHub, though while it may be somewhat hard to get working (see readme). This game is written in C++, using Allegro game library. If you want to hear a rant, please ask me about gamepad support on all platforms, but especially Linux and MacOS X...

Trailer:


youtu.be/aruCsdxWCCQ

Screenshots:

Please see game's site, as I can't seem to embed screenshots properly here (they are too wide, and img tag doesn't seem to support 'width' attribute).

Quick download links:

Windows Installer (Portable version available on site)
Linux 32-bit (DEB and RPM packages available on site)
Linux 64-bit(DEB and RPM packages available on site)
MacOS X 10.9+ DMG

Feedback:

While the game is finished and no further major improvements will be made, you can post your feedback and bug reports here, or in my blog ( http://zxstudio.org )
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Re: [Release] Return of Dr. Destructo

Postby zahni » 18 Apr 2015, 16:08

This is a fun game, and most of the controls feel smooth and intuitive. I like how your ship image changes depending on your bank angle.

The enemy prop plane animations were kind of distracting because they're subtle enough that I wasn't sure if it was a graphical glitch or something intentional.

I really like the pixel art - it helps give the game a retro feel, and it's high enough quality that it looks good.

For some reason the menus (with the glowing green buttons over a black background) feel a bit out of place next to all the other graphics. That might just be because of the bright green - maybe it would match the other parts of the game better if they were yellow or brown or orange?

All in all, though, very impressive!


A few Linux packaging notes:

You should probably put the binary in /usr/games/ and the data in /usr/share/games/dr-destructo-2/. Right now you put the binary in /opt/games/DrDestructo2, which means it's not on the search path for executables (typing DrDestructo2 in the command line does not run the game).

Also, the game description gets formatted strangely in the Ubuntu Software Center (see attached), although it's formatted correctly if I just install through Debian Package Manager.
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Re: [Release] Return of Dr. Destructo

Postby MaxEd » 18 Apr 2015, 16:19

Thank you for feedback, especially for Linux-related problems! I based "opt/games" installation path on a recommendation, as /usr probably should not be used to install programs that are not part of this distribution. But if it leads to problems, I should change that!

Now, as for Readme formatting in Software Centre, I think I should solve this with a separate readme file for RPM/DEB packages. It certainly not useful to make it a copy of Readme.

I'll try to fix this issues with some future release.

About menus: I tried several other colors for menus with my artist, but that's what we settled on. Maybe it's a matter of personal preference :) I'll be glad to hear more opinions on that!
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Re: [Release] Return of Dr. Destructo

Postby Akien » 18 Apr 2015, 19:39

I watched the trailer, it looks nice, I'll try the game asap.

I've had a quick look at the GitHub repository, and indeed it looks like it won't be easy to compile out of the box since you require a patched version of allegro. I see you had troubles with gamepad support so I guess you have your reasons for patching allegro. As a Linux distribution packager, I can tell you that this will be a major hindrance to get your game packaged in official repositories, since it would be against most distros packaging policies to package your game with a patched bundled allegro library when allegro is already provided in official repositories.

Is there really no way for you to achieve what you want to do with the pristine version of allegro, or to work with the allegro team towards getting your patch upstreamed?

MaxEd {l Wrote}:Thank you for feedback, especially for Linux-related problems! I based "opt/games" installation path on a recommendation, as /usr probably should not be used to install programs that are not part of this distribution. But if it leads to problems, I should change that!

It's true that /usr/games and /usr/share/games are usually meant to be used by the distribution's official packages. The recommended approach for third-party packages such as yours would be to use the /usr/local path, i.e. /usr/local/games and /usr/local/share/games.
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Re: [Release] Return of Dr. Destructo

Postby charlie » 19 Apr 2015, 00:34

I took the luxury of embedding the trailer for you. Hope you don't mind.

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Re: [Release] Return of Dr. Destructo

Postby MaxEd » 19 Apr 2015, 08:00

As a Linux distribution packager, I can tell you that this will be a major hindrance to get your game packaged in official repositories, since it would be against most distros packaging policies to package your game with a patched bundled allegro library when allegro is already provided in official repositories.

Is there really no way for you to achieve what you want to do with the pristine version of allegro, or to work with the allegro team towards getting your patch upstreamed?


I was thinking about removing the dependency on my custom patch, since it actually less useful than I thought first. When I started coding it, I had every intention of getting it into the mainstream Allegro, to get the compatibility with SDLs gamepad database. But it soon become apparent that the differences between the way those two libraries handle gamepads make it impossible, so I was left with a half-finished patch... I'll try to think of something. But then again, I don't think my game could be included into any official distributions even then, at least in short perspective, as it relies a) on Allegro 5 branch (and a lot of distros still only included Allegro 4), b) on unstable Allegro 5.1.x branch. There was talk about releasing the current state of 5.1.x as a stable, but there are problems (mainly, with packaging) which so far prevented the team from doing it. Unfortunately, the dependence on 5.1.x is necessary, as 5.0.x is a bit too long in the tooth, and does not have another of my patches (which was accepted by maintainers), to fix gamepads support in MacOS X a bit.

The recommended approach for third-party packages such as yours would be to use the /usr/local path, i.e. /usr/local/games and /usr/local/share/games.


OK, then it is settled, I'll change that.

I took the luxury of embedding the trailer for you. Hope you don't mind.


Thank you!
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Re: [Release] Return of Dr. Destructo

Postby MaxEd » 10 May 2015, 18:40

A small update: I posted an article with some details about development of "Return of Dr. Destructo" in my blog
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Re: [Release] Return of Dr. Destructo

Postby c_xong » 11 May 2015, 00:47

The game is quite nice, congratulations!

- Maybe it's just my taste, but I didn't like the music. Also I think it's better to avoid MIDI.
- Rapid fire would be nice
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Re: [Release] Return of Dr. Destructo

Postby MaxEd » 11 May 2015, 08:40

Can't do anything about music right now, but I'll try to think of something closer to Mobile release.
Rapid fire should be working. You can either tap or hold fire button (thought if you hold it, the bullets will be fired with loner pauses for balance purposes).
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Re: [Release] Return of Dr. Destructo

Postby eugeneloza » 11 May 2015, 08:58

Gave the game a quick try:
Win7
My resolution is 1366x768 but the taskbar always covers the game data (score, "press Enger" etc). Why not fullscreen?

And yes... the music is irritiating a bit.

Overall the game is really fun.
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Re: [Release] Return of Dr. Destructo

Postby MaxEd » 11 May 2015, 09:15

You can enable fullscreen mode in Options/Video menu. I did not enable it by default, because it is usually safer to start in Windowed mode, and also because fullscreen modes are a pain in Linux/MacOS X, and may not work at all (depending on window manager).
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