Note (August 2003):
This page is deprecated, but you can contact me if you would like to receive the binaries. The file is 1.3MB in size. The game has compatibility problems with 2000 and XP, possibly others. The editor seems to have no such problems.

Blowup is a game I finished a while ago. The final version with four levels is freely availible here for you to play. To install the game, just extract the above zip into an empty directory and run Blowup.exe. A fully-functional level editor is included for you to use (please send any interesting levels to me!). If you want news on the game, join the mailing list above. Blowup is a side-scrolling shoot-em-up, but before I say more, I'll let you check out a few screen shots...

Synopsis

You are stranded when your work experience student damages the hyperdrive by sitting on it. You were on a routine replacement for the escort pilot at a deep space research station. When you arrive at the station you find it in ruin! Find out what happened and take vengence on the ruthless alien force!

Features of the This Release

Development Notes:

I had gotten 3/4 through making the Robot walking mode (it lets you walk/jump around like Mario), but I decided to scrap it because I had to hack a lot of my old code, and it was just getting messy while not adding a great deal to the game play. So that's in the bin. One day I'll make a full platform game and do it properly, including scrolling in vertical and horizontal directions. I've had an original idea for a platform game for a long time.

The game editor is great! You can create a whole new level from scratch and then go into the level editor to paint on the tiles, enemies, doors and powerups. I've extended the level editor to allow you to easily create tile animations, like slime dripping, or flashing lights. You can also add stars to the background, delete levels, copy levels, copy the tile-set from a level, and change the boss of a level. The template feature has been added. This is like a library of theme levels, such as cave, ice, fire, tech, organic, etc. which you can customise as you like.

The overlay tiles add extra depth to the game. Instead of flying over all the tiles, you can fly under these 'overlay' tiles, like you're hiding behind them. This is good for hiding powerups too. This feature has been added to the level editor in an easy to use and flexible interface.

It is now possible to hide powerups inside enemies, so when you destroy them, a powerup appears. This gives you more incentive to kill all the enemies, and offers an extra challenge if there is a good weapon hidden inside a difficult enemy.

I have just fixed a memory leak, which solved a lot of problems. First you can play as many levels as you like without running out of memory. Second, I reorganized the way I allocate memory which prevented fragmentation, freeing up around 70k of memory!! Which is a lot for a real mode game! Further changes have cut the executable size down from around 232k to 119k. At the moment the frame rate is at about 14 fps on my 486-66.

I tried using the Vat sound library to add music and sound effects, but just by adding the sound engine the frame rate was reduced to between 7 and 9, which is unacceptable. The music sounded fine, but the sound effects were of poor quality. It seems Blowup will be without music. You'll just have to put on your favourite CD :)

This next release will most likely be the final. I will have added just about everything I want to see in it, except all the good graphics, enemies, and levels. If anyone would like to submit levels to me please email me. I will consider placing them in the final release.

25th April 1998
Great news! The engine is finished! That's right, after exactly 10 months of work, I've finally finished the Blowup engine. The only parts that are disappointing (to me, at least), are where I had to rely on other people's code - the keyboard ISR can't handle weird keypress combinations, and I've had to disallow the use of left shift for anything, and the Vat sound library didn't deliver. On my sound card, Smix often plays some of the explosions slightly distorted (I don't know about any others - I've had no complaints).

But that's not the end of it. Now comes the fun task of creating new enemies, weapons, and bosses, drawing and refining tile, sprite, transition screen and background graphics, designing and perfecting levels, and writing the complete storyline. I've been working on the existing sprite graphics and they have improved 400%. I have added some mandatory features: shields, invincibility, and rapid fire.

Revised Graphics

Below are two of the sprites that will appear in the demo.

8th June 1998
Okay, so things have been slow in the last few weeks. I've had my mind on other things... but this weekend I got my hands dirty and reorganized the whole sprite numbering system, which paves the way for an almost unlimited number of enemies, powerups, and doors. Blowup underwent surgery, and instead of using a scalpel I used a chainsaw... she came out relatively unscathed. The final levels of the game have been planned, and a list of 90 odd enemies, 80 doors, 25 weapons, and 70 explosions have been set out. You can expect some high-quality graphics and addictive gameplay. While it is a through-and-through shoot-em-up, there will be lots of variety and creative game design. There will be 20 individual bosses, each with its own characteristics and weak-points, in the spirit of games such as R-type.

28th June 1998
I've made a few improvements. Now it is easy to trade the levels you have made in the level editor with other people. This will allow me to put new levels I've made on my web page for registered players to download and use, so they can add to the collection of levels they have! Like add-on levels :) I've also added some user interface improvements to the level editor, like error messages. There is now a cool green flame out the back of the ship when you accelerate. Various bug fixes. The final version should be ready by 26th of July.

21st July 1998
There are now powerful tools implemented in the editor for copying blocks of tiles from place to place, and for filling regions of the level with a tile pattern, making development of levels much faster.

A comprehensive help system has been built into the editor, and the menu interface of the editor is now robust and can take word commands as well as item numbers.

The game is in the final stages of development. I've made several new enemies and doors, cluster bombs, improved existing enemy artificial intelligence, and have started experimenting with POV-Ray 3.0 to render backgrounds and splash screens myself. I have made these cool asteroids which explode into little asteroids when they crash into walls :) The demo should be ready by the end of the week, but the final version may take a lot longer than expected, judging by the time it's taking to make the demo.

2nd August 1998
Finally!!! After over a year the demo is complete! I never thought it would take this long :{ It's been well worth it! Download the demo at the top of the page and see just what I've been up to all this time. Two brilliant levels, two unique bosses, and an extra level for experimentation with the level editor.

For a limited time I'm offering a chance to score the full version for free. I need some people to do some beta testing. For this they will need a slightly better version of the demo (without some of the features of the level editor crippled). So if you are interested, email me. You will get a free full version and your name in the credits if you find a bug that I don't know about.

17th August 1998
Thanks to those who helped beta test - it has helped me improve the game and motivate me to do things I was too lazy to do previously. The demo has been updated with the following major fixes/improvements: funny behavior when killing boss and dying fixed; keyboard configuration screen doesn't crash; password has been shortened to 18 characters; password input handles weird stuff.

Music! Yes, believe it or not I'm adding music! I said I wouldn't, but a kind Russian digital musician has offered to help me with sound effects and music, so it prompted me to reconsider. The sound library I am using, although not supporting MIDI or Mod, can loop .wav files and can load sounds from multiple files, making it feasible to implement a crude music system. Currently 85% of the functionality for the new soundfx/music engine has been implemented.

17th November 1998
It's been a while since I have worked on Blowup. After getting my new computer a month ago, I've been concerned with win32 programming, and university work. I've just done some more work on level 4, however, managing to create a nice rock texture to use on the tiles of this level. I've still got to build the boss and make some new enemies and doors. I'm considering restructuring this web page to allow easier navigation. Here is a screenshot of the level under construction:

18th November 1998
I've built the level 4 boss. It's a turret that withdraws when when you shoot it. The screen shot doesn't show it, but the animation looks pretty cool.