contest: NDS GAME - Starfighter Skirmish - By: connor9

[connor9]

Starfighter Skirmish

Welcome to the exciting world of space combat simulation!

This game makes use of many of the DS's unique features. Here's a quick screenshot:



If you have played X-wing or TIE Fighter, the controls to this game will be very familiar to you. This isn't a port though. The engine is written entirely from scratch. The stuff I didn't write is listed as follow, with a big thanks to the writer:

NDSLib - Thanks to Dovoto for a kicking rad mini GL port. Thanks to wintermute as well for a wonderful devkit environment.
GBFS - Thanks to tepples!
Arm9->Arm7 Communication - Thanks for a great tutorial Doublec
MD2 to DS display list -> Thanks to eli and dovoto for this tool. It was a good base for writing a custom model tool.

I'd like to thank all the really helpful people on #dsdev and gbadev.org. They are a really helpful bunch.

There are some more screenshots on the manual page.

How to play:
Ok. I won't lie, because X-wing style games have slightly complicated controls, so does this game. You can read the full manual here:

http://www.connor.completelyfreehosting.com/skirmish/manual.html

Note: This does not work on the emulators. It uses GBFS and a lot of 3d.

Files:
See the post a few messages down.

[R3Light]

I would greatly appreciate it if you could upload your files to the forum

[connor9]

Here are the roms.

skirgba.zip - For Flashme version
skirmish.zip - For emulator/wifime (but likely not working)

(Is this what you meant R3Light?)

[rize]

This is very technically impressive?  How'd you got those models?  How long did this take?

I haven't figured out how to move yet though 

[R3Light]

Here are the roms.

skirgba.zip - For Flashme version
skirmish.zip - For emulator/wifime (but likely not working)

(Is this what you meant R3Light?)

Yes thank you

[connor9]

This is very technically impressive?  How'd you got those models?  How long did this take?

I haven't figured out how to move yet though 

Part of the reason I decided to make a game based on Star Wars as opposed to something of my own creation is that I'm fairly horrible at creating original art assets. I am not an graphical artist in any way. I am however decent at writing converters for things. I wrote a program that converts ship models from the old TIE Fighter 95 game to the MD2 format. Then I manually created smaller textures that are more appropriate for the DS from the original textures. The only other manual step is I have to use a 3d editor to place the textures on the model. It takes about 1 hour to get a ship ready for the DS. (A small ship that is.)

I worked on and off for about two months to make this. A lot of the early time was spent on figuring out how the DS worked. I had a small progress log that I was keeping for myself. Once I was comfortable with the DS the progress log stops as I was focussed on the game side of it.

http://www.connor.completelyfreehosting.com/tf/tf.htm

[rize]

That is most interesting!  I certainly understand the use of non original assets as I have very limited artistic capability myself.  In my game the art I did was just the icons on the title screen and menu, the fonts (which were simply shaded from existing fonts), and a custom version of the tileset produced by Sean McDonald for me.  I thought some of the blocks were a bit too 3D so I toned down the edges a bit and used various palette tricks to generate the rest of the imagery.  I changed the colors on a thing or two.  Oh, and plus my custom level editor was used to create the gameplay background in my game (the grey area outside the playing field and the black area behind it colored tiles).  I have an option for randomly flipping tiles; I used random x and y flip for the black background and random y flip for the bg outside the playing field.  I think that turned out very nice considering.  For sound I had to borrow a bit... and for music I solicited the assistance of my favorite game composer who gladly allowed me to include some of his music.  I had to do quite a bit of hand editing of art assets myself actually.  My total dev time was about a month (using all my spare time, probably about 50 hours a week).

What I don't understand is why you didn't use that game's assets to create an original game.  You could have showed Factor 5 what's what by making an arcade style starwars space combat game that's more fun   I can't understand why so many are making ports (even if you don't see/use the source code I'd still consider it a port... if not then a copy).  Sure it's easier, but if I'm going to spend so much time programming, I want to realize my own ideas rather than someone else's.

[connor9]

I suppose that's true but when you look at this game versus the Factor 5 games or even the TIE Fighter series it's similar and different at the same time. The control scheme in this has similarities to both of those types of games but it's still quite different. It doesn't have the simplicity of a Factor 5 game but it's still very different than the TIE Fighter series. So in a sense it is original because it's a space combat game with a unique control system. But on the other hand it's a known genre so the comparison to Rogue Squadron, TIE Fighter, and the Ep III game are easy to do. It's a mish mash of all the games in the genre and it picks and chooses elements of each that it likes. It's easy to say that X-Wing,TIE Fighter, Rogue Squadron, and the likes are all the same game and none of them are that original.

Though the real factor is that the design of the engine is more important than the game I was implementing. It's fairly flexible so that I can go back and implement different games with ease. I spent the most time on setting up the camera system, enemy system, weapon system, 3d->2d projection system for explosions and HUD components. My goal for the game was to make a somewhat flexible engine from scratch and then implement games in it.

I think the attractiveness in ports is that you can spend more time on honing your programming skills and knowledge than on your game designer knowledge. It takes a lot to create and implement new ideas. I plan to make an original style space combat game using the star wars assets. Only I know that it will take me a looong time to do it. By choosing a known genre and very simple game requirments (simple 1 on X combat) I had a very completeable goal. This game has a lot of components just to get it to the stage where it can display a 3d model. I had to pick reasonable limits on what the game would be to get anything done for the Neoflash contest. The point of the neoflash contest is to show off a game not an engine and most of my development time has been on the engine. Things like model managment, dynamic texture management, and memory management are a pretty huge component of a 3d game. Add in collision detection, 3d->2d projections, weapons systems, and the like and it's a pretty large beast.

I hope that explains the desire for ports or remakes. It lets you spend time on learning your skills before you add yet another layer to the development process. I'm of the oppisite opinion to you. I have no problem with people making games based on other peoples ideas as long as their goal is to make a professional and fully functional game as a learning tool. It's much easier to reach a goal of completing a game (and many people start and never finish a game) even if it's other peoples ideas. Oh, and it should be fun. If that happens, it doesn't matter what game it is!

[rize]

No, I agree that the tie fighter series and rogue squadron are completely different games.  I was just saying that you could have used those assets for a rogue squadron style game.  I don't have any experience with tie fighter series (other than your game!) so I can't comment on how yours differs from the originals unfortunately.  I do know, in general, that flight sims are very complicated.  I think I could enjoy playing one, but it should be designed to minimize the learning curve (without sacrificing the flexibility and gameplay inherent in the complex control).

Well you certainly succeeded in making an impresive and functional 3D engine anyway! 

As for programming existing games as a learning tool, I agree it is a very good idea.  But it's not that hard to make small changes that have a significant effect on the gameplay (although maybe more difficult within the strict confines of a genre and license).  Of course, if your goal is a good engine rather than original gameplay, then such an endeavor is pointless.  I was just thinking of this is a game competion more than a game technology competition (the point of the comp being to make games that people would want to play (and hence inspiring them to buy a neoflash to play it)).  Of course your game is entirely playable (with the manual), just not entirely original   anyway, good luck and thanks for reading

[connor9]

As for programming existing games as a learning tool, I agree it is a very good idea.  But it's not that hard to make small changes that have a significant effect on the gameplay

If you've played the TIE Fighter series of games (not the Factor 5 ones), there are a lot of small changes that make this version quite different. The handling of ships is quite different and the touch screen to me makes the most impact in this kind of game. That's really why I wanted to see this kind of game on the DS. It's meant to be a slightly complex space simulator with an accessible way of interfacing with the game. Sadly, with the genre all but dead, I don't think they'll ever be a game like this on the DS. That's the reason I wanted to make it!

As a side note, now that I've had time to try all the entires. I like your game a lot. It feels like a mix of tetris and Dr. Mario. In a good way! I like it.

[rize]

Thank you   I'm going to try your game some more soon and see if I can figure out how to play it.  I've always wanted to try a good flight sim and this is the perfect opportunity!

[smealum]

Congratulations for your first place connor9 !