I was bored...
 

... So I spent the last four hours making you guys a game.

Its a 1942 clone.

WASD or the arrow keys to move, Spacebar to fire. One hit will kill you, but you have three lives.

4 kinds of enemies, a normal fodder plane, a plane that shoots in a straight line, a plane that shoot in your direction, and a plane that comes up from behind you.

Gradually gets harder as more and more enemies fill the screen over time.

How long can you last? How high can you get your score?

The sounds are kinda loud so you might wanna adjust your volume.

Download the .exe file here:
Booyah!

NOTE: I haven't figured out how to do that invulnerability flicker thing that keeps you from dying right after you just died, so just consider it a difficulty raising feature.

NOTE #2: I didn't make any of the sprites or sounds, they came with the program I used to make the game. Minus the bgm, thats from Mother 3.

Stealing from examples? How evil! But Gamemaker is a really cool program, and GML makes it powerful and fun to use. Really, check out Reflect Games to see its potential.

Otherwise, you didn't edit much, and the way it starts makes it damn hard to avoid the enemies right at the beginning. Otherwise, the planes coming in from behind are the same speed as your bullets, so its impossible to shoot them down. Have you thought of maybe mouse controlled aiming? Or otherwise some new sprites or other ideas that improve gameplay or interface?

And then, ya know, go from there. Make somethin amazing.

I'd say mouse controlled flight. It would eliminate problems with not being able to go side to side while going backwards, and with backwards sticking occasionally, which can get you killed pretty quick.

Also, the bullets are faster than the blue planes, just not by much. You can shoot them but it's difficult. They give ten points compared to the normal one.

Oh, and all you have to do is shoot to avoid the planes in the beginning.

That's a good point... Why didn't I think of that?!

I borrowed the backbone design and sprites so I could make a game in a few hours, but there is actually a few more things in there than the game maker example. The problem is that I can't get one of them to work, and I can't actually get into the game far enough to see the rest.

The main issue with a basic little game like this is there really isn't a way for me to make it look like I didn't just copy and past the damn thing from the example.

I assure you though, I made it from scratch. I made it to kill time, not to impress the internets.

I still have a few things I want to put into it, here is a short list:

1. The invulnerability flicker thing.
2. A few more enemy planes. Right now there are four (Eight if you count the faster counterparts.).
3. Powerups.
4. More level variety.
5. Some not generic, stolen sprites. (I can't draw, this may never happen.)
6. Maybe mouse controlled flight. I'll go see if I can't figure out how to do that now. I however, do know how to do joystick movement, would that suffice for now?

What was the one problem? Maybe I can help you.

I suggest skipping invul. flicker.

Don't really need it in a game like this.

Oh it was a boss unit that was worth a hundred points. I'm working on it now.

I've surpassed boredom and turned this into a learning experience.

If you know how to either make the plane fly faster, or do the mouse control thing let me know.

You haven't died, then died immediately again, then died immediately again, have you?

Also, thats your keyboard man.

I have. I don't see it as an issue.



...So it is.

Using a different keyboard without that problem, however, has had negligible effect on my score. That seems odd.

I can't get over 600 points myself, and have yet to live long enough to see the white or black planes. It would help if I could figure out how to increase the movement speed of the plane, but I can't and its pissing me off.

Maybe I should go look in some of the tutorials, it has been almost a year since I did them...

Possibly it shall shed some light on that problem.

EDIT: MUHAHAHA I Figured it out! Faster planes here I come!