Gun Shy

This game's been done for a while, but I've been kicking the Torque Game Builder Builder - the thing that turns a development environment into a game. It has not been easy, but I think I've got one that works.

Gun Shy (3 megs)

What we have here is a nine level marginally-adaptive gun-toting extravaganza! You play a mechanic who puts down sentry turrets. There's a lot of blood. Hint: turn the volume way up, because TGB seems to turn it way down. I suggest putting techno or hard rock on in the background, as well.

Give it a shot. Ha ha. Tell me what you think, remembering that it is the very definition of a throwaway game. If you find a bug, tell me - at this stage, I'm more worried about the quality of Torque Game Builder than Gun Shy. The latter being bad is acceptable. The former is not.

Also, tell me how hard you thought the game was. I really can't tell. :P

Fleet Zero

I'm releasing a (very) little game I named "Fleet Zero". It's my first game in Torque Game Builder (although not my first in Torque 2D) and it's mostly to adjust to the programming environment.

Fleet Zero (1.6 megs). Should work on any Windows machine. Let me know if something goes wrong, or if you want a Mac version.

I really wanted to make a game where the player is a constant effect, instead of one where the player gets discrete actions. So, in this game, you play the commander of the last fleet of humans. Think Battlestar Galactica.

Your mouse pointer is the fleet destination/weapon focus. All human ships will home in on your mouse pointer. If you press the mouse button, all human ships will turn around and get the hell out of dodge at maximum speed, but it disables your weapon.

Pretty simple, right? Well, there's alien ships, too. Aliens who conquered human planets! And if your ships get too close, the aliens will blow them up! And even if you kill the aliens, each wave gets more difficult!

So your goal is to get your ships to avoid their ships and found a safe human colony. But there's a complication: your ships are too few to found a new human colony! You need more humans!

Fortunately, the aliens keep human slaves! So if you blow up their ships, the slaves should be able to escape into a vessel of their own and join your fleet. Once you have enough human ships and all the aliens are dead, you win. Otherwise, the aliens will just keep attacking.

How do you kill an alien? By leaving your mouse pointer on him.

But, wait, the fleets home in on that mouse pointer, and if you press the mouse key so they run away, you can't do any damage!

There are two things saving you. First, human ships don't exactly turn on a dime. Second, the closer together two human ships are, the slower they go. Fleet maneuvers are hard, you know.

Of course, fast human ships tend to plow into alien vessels at full speed, and ships in a fleet tend to get eaten by any alien that warps in nearby.

It's actually kind of fun, in my opinion. Once you win and found a human colony, you take over another, even more tenuous "last fleet" of humans facing tougher aliens and needing more ships to found the colony.

If you lose, no worries: the human slaves on board the alien ships go berserk and break free, so it's a happy ending. Of course, YOU are dead...

Anyhow, feel free to give it a whirl.