More History of Tank!Game:
This is the first major improvement on Tank!Game. I believe I finished it sometime in early 2005. It took me way too long. But I had succeeded in making it at least a little fun to play. However, it was still too buggy. Don’t bother downloading this, seriously.
Here’s the description I wrote when I posted it on gamedev.net:
That red ! bar to the left is the warning meter. It goes up as enemies approach. Use it to search and destroy. The Pink bar is Life. Blue is energy.
Things I’ve improved include a weapon system. After you kill a tank, you can pick up its weapon. However, the last weapon you equiped influences the stats of the current weapon you have. For example, if you had Yellow (bouncy bullet) and then you pick up Blue (power shot), you get a weakened Power shot that bounces. I’ve also included spit-screen 2 player modes you can use if you have a joystick. Other differences include reduced difficulty, more variety of levels, particle effects and more sound effects. I would love to have the old verison of this game to allow you to see the difference, but I dont have the webspace for both.
The controls are:
WASD moves the tank. The mouse rotates the turret. Left click shoots. Spacebar jumps.
About the “version number”: The “1.5″ was tacked on after I finished what I called “Tank!Game2″, which was actually the third iteration of the game. Anyway, the point is that these aren’t version numbers; they refer to the iteration. So while in most cases “version 2.0″ software is mature, for my games “iteration 2″ is still very green.
[Don’t] Download Tank!Game1.5.zip (1.6 mb)
March 10th, 2006
This is the first version of Tank!Game. It was finished September 9, 2004.
The gameplay is simple. You are a tank, the objective is to seek and destroy other tanks. The last tank to be destroyed will reveal the door to the next level. Rinse, repeat. Here’s what the readme.txt says:
- How to install.
Execute ‘TG_Fullscreen.exe’ for fullscreen mode.
or ‘TG_Windowed.exe’ for windowed mode. If one does not work, try the other.
- How to play.
- Movement [WASD]
- Aim Left and Right Arrows
- Shoot [SPACEBAR]
- Jump [UP ARROW]
- Turbo Hold [SHIFT]
- Energy Mode [CAPSLOCK]
- Pause [PAUSE]
At the title screen, push enter to start the game.
The objective at each level is reach the exit to the next level.
The last enemy tank to die will become an exit.
On some levels, the exit can be found without killing enemies.
The game revolves around two energy bars:
The yellow one is your life. If it runs out, you die.
The blue one is your energy. It is used for the following:
- Shooting, one shot takes half your energy.
- Jumping
- Turbo, doing anything while hold turbo will drain your energy
Your energy bars recharge. There are two modes of charging your energy:
-Life Conserve (CapsLock on)
This mode will recharge your Life bar before charging your Energy Bar
-Energy Recharge (Capslock off)
This mode will recharge your Energy bar quickly while draining your Life.
This game is hard, so here are some tips:
-Use both energy modes. Energy Recharge is best for most situations, however
-Enemy tanks have the same two energy bars that you do
and are always in Energy Recharge mode. Exploit this.
-Enemy tanks can hurt eachother. In later levels, you will have to exploit this.
Some backstory:
This was my first real game. Although I was very happy with it at the time; it is utter crap. It didn’t take long for the self-satisfaction to wear off. I went to back to work on Tank!Game and made improvements based on feedback from friends and helpful coders on the gamedev.net forums. Not long afterwards, I turned an OpenGL app that barely worked and wasn’t fun into something worthy of being called a “game.” I repeated this cycle a few times and Tank!Game has steadily improved. This sort of iterative development cycle is the idea behind Garbage In, Games Out.
Download Tank!Game.zip (1.4 mb)
March 3rd, 2006
