FireMadness game: top-down shooter, bullet hell.

[eugeneloza]

Sometimes it's so hard to find motivation... OpenFire is a simple game I've written in 5 hours (one night) in Castle Game Engine (Lazarus/Free Pascal) + 1 hour for graphics and 3 more hours of testing, playing and having fun Still no sound&music, no menu (as usually ) It's a game inspired by an ancient CrossFire (1981 by Jay Sullivan) game.

The goal of the game is to eliminate all enemy bots. Use arrow keys to move and WASD to fire at 4 directions (hold down the button for rapid fire). Player has 200 HP until death... and that's not much...
You can move only vertical or horizontal direction at the same time, and movement automatically stops at crossroads (you can invert the movement direction).
Enemies come in groups of 3+ starting from lazy easy form, after destroyed they transform in more healthy and powerful medium form and finally into tough, quick and rapid-firing hard form. Occasionaly hard form after being destroyed transforms into boss form (the name says it all).









FireMadness walkthrough: Part 1 - Bedroom (hard)

youtu.be/zmmAjvgzKJ4

FireMadness walkthrough: Part 2 - Living room (hard)

youtu.be/R7ISGE4USbA

FireMadness walkthrough: Part 3 - Cellar (hard)

youtu.be/pD1BE2xEmlY

FireMadness walkthrough: Part 4 - Kitchen (hard)

youtu.be/hgSkMY-CcjM

FireMadness walkthrough: Part 5 - Attic (hard)

youtu.be/c7kDvQ7R2sY

Code: https://github.com/eugeneloza/FireMadness
Release: https://github.com/eugeneloza/FireMadness/releases (Windows, Linux)

[rogerdv]

There is an open source jabber server named Openfire, isnt that a clash of names?

[eugeneloza]

Wow... that's bad... I've googled and found nothing relevant. But any suggestion is highly welcome...
So, let's that be a working title... Maybe OpenCrossFire then?

New release! (follow the links above)
Music, sound and explosions!
Updated video.

[Julius]

How about something with "grid"? "Fire Grid"?
Or "Pew-Pew-Grid"? (read that as in a kid making the sounds while pointing a plastic gun).

[eugeneloza]

Today I was thinking of some virus-damaged droids preventing the player from accessing the kitchen refrigerator becuase his antivirus license has expired ... And only option to starving to death is fighting his way through. Kinda FreeDroidRPG setting. Still not sure, but that might be something like "Open the Fridge" or "Save the Fridge"

[eugeneloza]

New release.
Better AI, balanced difficulty (now it is possible to win), sticky keyboard fixed, mouse movement implemented, other minor improvements.
And still no idea about changing the name I start liking GridFire

I've also a question. How does the voice sound? I didn't include it in release (you may easily uncomment it in the code - there are two variants: hostile bot, reporting errors and a generic sound).
It seems that just a sound I've used previously sounds more... natural?
Voice fits fine heavy music, but when the music is calm I don't like it.
Or maybe I've just got my ears tired of it while recording?

youtu.be/6RgkCIskOKE

[Julius]

GridFire seems fine.

Regarding the voices... not sure I really like them during gameplay. I guess it would be better to only use them during startup (a bit like this with some fancy screen shake or so: https://youtu.be/SnscgQK7mUY ) and maybe as sort of cut-scenes, for example to introduce a Boss enemy or switch to the next difficulty level or so.

[eugeneloza]

GridFire seems fine.

I've forgotten to google it... there is already a CrossFire clone GridFire by Robbert Prins
Back for searching for ideas

P.S. The 'voice' is played when the bot enters the stage. I might use 'generic' sound for low-level bots and voice for harder ones. I'm just wondering, doesn't it sound... not in the game style.

[andrewj]

Here are some name ideas:

FireMania
CrazyFire
DroneWarrior

Didn't find any games by these names in an internet search (not in the first 20-30 results anyway).

[eugeneloza]

FireMania sounds very nice! I've got to think about it. Kill'em all or die trying

P.S. I have a set of new ideas for bots types:

Now I have
light bot - quick, not mobile, slow-fire rate
medium - normal speed, average mobile, medium fire rate
hard - normal speed, very mobile, high fire rate
boss - slow speed, average mobile, very high fire rate

To add:
Homing mines (don't shoot, try to close in and explode)
Boss spawning homing mines (don't shoot, spawns homing mines)
Tiny fighters (very quick)
Boss spawning tiny fighters
Powerful bot, shooting seldomly, but very powerful charges
Bots which shoots can additionally disable player movement or fire
Bots constructing temporary "walls" preventing player from moving
Bots shielding nearby bots.

Ideas are welcome!

Plus map tiles: wall - no shooting, no passage
door - shooting possible, but only enemy bots can pass (these will limit the exterior of the map, plus might be used in level design)

[eugeneloza]

And another name idea: WildFire? I see only weather newsletters on Android with such name.
However, the name might be a trademark of HTC phone... or general words cannot be a trademark?

Updated code, release and video in the first post.

[Imerion]

Cool project, it looks fun!

[Arthur]

And another name idea: WildFire? I see only weather newsletters on Android with such name.
However, the name might be a trademark of HTC phone... or general words cannot be a trademark?

Updated code, release and video in the first post.

Not that it should matter a whole lot, but the group behind 0 AD calls themselves WildFire Games so just to avoid potential confusion he might want to differentiate a bit more. Though SuperTux, SuperTuxKart etc are probably a lot more confusing, admittedly.

EDIT: oh you were the OP, sorry about not checking that. Well just thought you might like to know.

[andrewj]

A disadvantage of "WildFire" is that it is a normal and fairly common word, which makes it hard to find when people search for it -- they will get a lot of search results for news items about bushfires, etc...

I completely understand if you prefer to make up your own name though.

[Julius]

How about "Oh no, my grid is on fire!"

What about "Plasma Grid"?

[eugeneloza]

Name changed to FireMadness (It awesomly fits the story as the main antagonist is SoftMadness Doors OS )

Huge overhaul. Almost release
Many new bot types + 3 more bosses.
Map manager + unfinished story mode
Hot-seat player co-op mode
Difficulty level
And many much much more

Video and download links updated.

[Imerion]

Hot-seat player co-op mode

Yay! Awesome!

[Julius]

I like the new name

The updated video looks cool too, but why all that gray in gray? Even the enemy bullets are gray on top of a gray background.

[eugeneloza]

New betta-release: a few improvements: better interface, better music handilng, "crossfire" map, better co-op mode, and others.
A few more interface improvements to be able to port it to Android...

Added new screenshots.

Even the enemy bullets are gray on top of a gray background.

Well... I'm not a designer and I'm afraid to experiment with colors.
Actually enemu bullets are cyan, but, yes, they look too achromatic. I can try to saturate the color...

P.S. I'd be very grateful if anybody could look through the game texts (spoilers! ) for errors and suggestions. English is not my native language
Also I use x1.5 difficulty multiplier for co-op mode. Could anybody test if it's not too difficult/too easy?

[Julius]

There is a "," too much after Maybe in the Epilog.

What do you mean with "piece of a cookie"? Not a native speaker either, but that doesn't seem to make sense in that context.

Disabler: instead of "used" "uses" & "short circuits" I would also write "that make" instead of "making"

Heavy bot: remove one "carrying", maybe replace the first with "support"?

"Shielder" isn't a word I think.

Healer: "However it does its job..." (two errors)

Crossfire: "...cleaner that runs..."

[eugeneloza]

Thanks a lot!!! I've fixed those.

"piece of a cookie"? Not a native speaker either, but that doesn't seem to make sense in that context.

I was thinking of making a word play of "a piece of a cake" (idiom for "easy"/"no problem") and internet cookie. Maybe I should better revert to cake.
The same stuff I was doing to dedicated servers -> dedicated masters, wi-fi -> fi-wi, Internet->Outernet and etc.

Heavy bot: remove one "carrying", maybe replace the first with "support"?

I replaced it with "transportation platform"

"Shielder" isn't a word I think.

Yes, it's a Shield+er (as in Heal+er, work+er, drive+er, etc.). However, I've changed that to Defender, I think it sounds better.

[eugeneloza]

Amost there... (the development took me already twice the time I've planned )

[Akien]

That's some awesome progress that you're making there
I'll have to have another look at how to setup CGE properly to build the game from source hehe. Also need to update my distro's lazarus package, it's still on 1.2.x IIRC :/

[eugeneloza]

Stop that laziness and finish it!!!

[eugeneloza]

Release candidate!!!
Menu, settings, and more...

I'd be very thankful if anybody could test the game against story and other maps being too hard. Especially multiplayer, as far as I have no-one to play with