Ultrabreaker: My Awesome Breakout Game

[KristopherWindsor]

Ultrabreaker: Making good progress so far; the project passed 5,000 lines of code yesterday.

Here's some history on the project:
- Sep / Oct 06: started using Free Basic
- Dec 06: started writing this game, which was at the time supposed to be only a 2-week project / test of Free Basic
- Jan / Feb 07: worked a lot on this game
- Feb / Mar 07: took a break for a month to work with PHP
- Jun 07: game seemed almost complete; I planned to finish in the summer (last summer)
- July 07: after making Zonaxtic, I was scared to come back to the project, because I kept focusing on new features instead of fixing a few bugs. Also there were 100+ global variables with namespaces / UDT groups and other problems due to old coding style, and I was not happy with the level editor because it was too primitive. (That and MiniCalc are why I made iGUI.)
- Jan 08: I tried to come back to the project, and spent about 3 days cleaning up old code. Then my motherboard broke, HP reformatted my hard drive, and I decided "clean-up" was too boring.
- Jun 08: I started the project over: I am reusing the graphics and am recoding the game one object at a time, based on the old version. Still, I started over with a blank .BAS file, after the old one was 5,000+ lines
- July 08: It's only been about two weeks, but the new version is steadily approaching completion, and already is about the size of the old one.

Most awesome game features:
- support for 1000+ bricks, 100+ balls, and 20+ paddles
- level editor and skinable graphics
- gravity orbs
- paddles on all four sides of the screen (optional)
- Bricks can be freely positioned and scaled; they don't need to be on a grid

Improvements since the original version:
- Scalable: runs at 320 * 240 to 1600 * 1200
- Better menus, organization, and game play modes
- Bug free (so far)
- Improved graphics optimization and quality; now the bricks are resized with my image scaler instead of multiput, and are resized before the game so they can be drawn with the native Put() in the game

I'll post a list of the features and more info later.

Here's a screenshot with the lasers / missiles / bullets, which I added tonight:
http://freefile.kristopherw.us/uploads/kristopherwindsor/ultrabreaker/laser-mania.jpg
It's not the best or most accurate screenshot of this game, but it's original, at least.
You can tell it doesn't get a good framerate there, but what did you expect from FBGFX at 1680 * 1050?
The bricks are small because they were in a 48 * 40 grid (1,920 bricks total).
Note that since the screen size doesn't affect the gameplay, the game keeps the 4:3 aspect ratio, so there is some margins at the sides.

Edit: here is a better screenshot:


 

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Well, the look of the game is very KristopherWindsor.

Anyway, I really can't make anything of the game at this moment. More details on the gameplay? You play against other paddles or just need to clear the playfield?

Looking forward to this.

[KristopherWindsor]

Well, the look of the game is very KristopherWindsor.

Anyway, I really can't make anything of the game at this moment. More details on the gameplay? You play against other paddles or just need to clear the playfield?

Looking forward to this.

You know Breakout?
You control all paddles and just try to clear the field.

BTW:

Code:

    ' meet any condition
    ' WIN:
    ' - all bricks broken
    ' - level up bonus
    ' - enough points collected
    ' LOSS:
    ' - all lives lost
    ' - forfeit
    ' - time runs out

[Leonheart]

a shareware? can u make small donation for font code?

[KristopherWindsor]

a shareware? can u make small donation for font code?

If I get any money, than I will need to test my PayPal account.

[KristopherWindsor]

Here's what happens when the paddles grow too big:


Do not let the odd screenshots fool you; when I get some real levels made, the game will play quite normally.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Ehm...those blue things....

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Will you stop with the porn images.

[BadMrBox]

Lol @ lachie for being a perv.

And I wonder how the hell you can make a breakout game look like this. I'm intrigued and very interested in playing.

[KristopherWindsor]

Don't look now, but, the colors from SCREEN 12 are exploding!!!

[barok]

Not that i'm complaining, but it looks very busy and distracting... i'd have difficulty following the game with all those awesome explosions.

[dabooda]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news Kristopher, but I think you might be color blind.

This looks totally insane and not so much a game as an actual exercise in chaos theory. But I will hold any other opinions until I get to try it out.

Out of curiosity though. What is your muse for creating games? What inspires you to create this madness!? Do you set goals for yourself before starting a project such as, let's see how much stuff I can throw on the screen before my head explodes?

I'm just messing around with you, nice to see someone is working on a project, now let's see if I can get started on this next one of mine...ugh.

DaBooda out...can't wait for a working demo.

[barok]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news Kristopher, but I think you might be color blind.

You only just figured that out now? 

[KristopherWindsor]

Dabooda, what is wrong with bright colors? They were probably made for games (since they weren't made for painting your house).
These screenshots look more confusing than the game will be when finished, but I do like explosions and madness.
But is the fire background OK at least? The striped block pattern is just there because it was easy to copy and paste, and normally you won't see so many explosions.

Although I did add somethings.
Don't ask questions - just be amazed.

[nkk_kan]

lol his pics always confuse me
so i've quit trying to figure out what's in the game and what's not in his games a long time ago
i just wait for the game