Get to Da Choppa - Retro Game Competition Entry

Started by therevills, January 20, 2018, 12:25:20

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therevills



Here is my "finished" entry to the Retro Game Competition Entry. The entry version has 6 levels, I wanted to add so much more!

Mostly inspired by the Amiga game:  Apocalypse.

Developed in Monkey2!

*** TOP SECRET ***

OPERATION: DA CHOPPA

You are a special agent of a top secret organisation. Your mission is to rescue all the hostages and recover the intel.

Good Luck!

Controls (keyboard customisable):

Cursor keys to move

Keyboard Z / Button A = Shoot

Keyboard X / Button B = Seeker Rockets

Keyboard C / Button X = Enter/Exit Choppa

https://therevillsgames.itch.io/get-to-da-choppa


iWasAdam

I'm loving the look of this. Can't wait to get my hands on dat chopper!

STEVIE G

Fantastic - love it!!  Still trying to get past level 3 - though I'm shite at shoot-em ups!

* Love the graphics - especially the animation on the chopper, your wee Rambo guy and the soldiers. 
* Great gameplay - get's pretty hardcore quickly.  Red choppers are a bit too good for me - I'm sure there's a trick to it though.   
* The music is excellent (reminds me of Cannon Fodder) as are the 8bit retro sounds.
* Great particle effects.
* Excellent attention to detail - graves, background animation, flag waving and that the wee guy can get out at any height and wander around the buildings.
* CRT effect is great - is this done using shaders?

Only very minor negative is that I think the enemies are too accurate too quickly, it didn't take long for them blow up my gunship most of the time.  Unlimited continues helps though  ;D

Very impressive!  Out of everything so far this one gets my vote!

TomToad

Nice game. Made it through level 3 after several tries.  Only negative I have is I don't like the default key bindings. Fortunately, you provide a way to change them.
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8 rabbits equals 1 rabbyte.

therevills

Thanks guys! A lot of hobby hours went into this! I had so many ideas which didnt get into the game:

* More enemies: Jets, Anti Aircraft vehicles, ships, different soliders
* Different tilesets: City, water, jungle
* Different objectives: Destroy buildings etc
* More animations

Known bugs:

* Scrolling isnt perfect for objects and they jump between the ints
* Collision isnt perfect

Quote from: STEVIE G on January 20, 2018, 13:40:33
Fantastic - love it!!  Still trying to get past level 3 - though I'm shite at shoot-em ups!

The game is completable!

Quote* Great gameplay - get's pretty hardcore quickly.  Red choppers are a bit too good for me - I'm sure there's a trick to it though.   

You need to use your seeker rockets at the right time (before yesterday they werent seekers and the game was rock hard!) ;D

Quote* The music is excellent (reminds me of Cannon Fodder) as are the 8bit retro sounds.

That track fits the game so much, we are a bit brain washed with it! If you listen to the high notes we actually made up words to go with it:

"Get to"
"Get to da choppa"
"Get to"
"Get to da choppa"

Quote* Excellent attention to detail - graves, background animation, flag waving and that the wee guy can get out at any height and wander around the buildings.
I wanted to add more! Grass blowing the wind when the choppa takes off and when the player move thru it.

Quote
* CRT effect is great - is this done using shaders?
Yep, but not by me... PixelPaladin did a great job: https://github.com/PixelPaladin/mx2-crt

Quote
Only very minor negative is that I think the enemies are too accurate too quickly, it didn't take long for them blow up my gunship most of the time.  Unlimited continues helps though  ;D
I wanted it to feel like the games of old which when I was a kid they were hard... if I had time I was going to add an easy mode but that'll have to be after the comp now.

Quote
Very impressive!  Out of everything so far this one gets my vote!

Thanks Stevie :)

Quote from: TomToad on January 20, 2018, 15:29:32
Nice game. Only negative I have is I don't like the default key bindings.

Thanks Mr Toad!

I played with few different defaults, starting with WASD but for some reason it didnt feel right with the 3 action buttons. What did you end up setting them too?

TomToad

It was the action buttons themselves I didn't like.  Kept wanting to fire with my index finger, kept jumping out of the copter to my death instead.  Just switched the Z and C keys around, much more natural.  If I ever figure out where I placed my joypad, might give that a try.
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8 rabbits equals 1 rabbyte.

Conjured Entertainment

#6
SWEET!!!

QuoteVery impressive!  Out of everything so far this one gets my vote!
I like FUNGICIDE too, so its a tough decision for me at this point.  8)


therevills


GaborD

Really fun!
Quite a few great entries. Hard to decide :)

iWasAdam

Brilliant. I felt at home immediately.
Went for a nice walk and hot shot at... went back to the chopper and blew the 'bits' out of them!

RemiD

#11
I have just tested your game.

it works well on my computer/os (Windows 7 64bits)

Graphics : nice, consistant style.
Sounds : cool effects, thanks for the option to configure the volume
Controls : easy enough to understand how to play, thanks for the option to configure the action keys
Gameplay : fun and addictive, but too difficult for me. Maybe add a progressive difficulty ? Also maybe add a way to oriente the aim of the helicopter independantly from its movement (with the mouse maybe ?), it would be easier to aim).

therevills

#12
Quote from: GaborD on January 22, 2018, 05:18:36
Really fun!
Quite a few great entries. Hard to decide :)

Quote from: iWasAdam on January 22, 2018, 08:07:03
Brilliant. I felt at home immediately.
Went for a nice walk and hot shot at... went back to the chopper and blew the 'bits' out of them!

Quote from: RemiD on January 22, 2018, 20:27:35
I have just tested your game.

Thanks for trying out the game guys and your comments  8)

Quote
Gameplay : fun and addictive, but too difficult for me. Maybe add a progressive difficulty ? Also maybe add a way to oriente the aim of the helicopter independantly from its movement (with the mouse maybe ?), it would be easier to aim).

It was designed to be hard, as I remember playing those kind of games on the Amstrad and they were really really hard! And I wanted it to have that kind of feel :P

Also I wanted to keep the controls to a classic style too, yeah adding moving aiming would make it easier and more modern but it would change the gameplay I was after. If I did an updated version it would have aiming controls.

Oh, the rockets on the choppa are homing missiles so as long as you get close enough they should hit targets themselves - that was a last minute change as the game was way too hard before! Also landing back at HQ will refuel and heal you.

Conjured Entertainment

Quote* CRT effect is great - is this done using shaders?
That is a really cool feature for this retro competition.

I have not played much with 2d shaders, but a post shader like that is tempting.

Qube

Don't use the crt shader as it breaks the comp rules. Pretend it's not an option until afterwards :P.. glad it's off by default though, good choice ;D - I left the crt shader out of mine completely because it creates extra colours and resolution that breaks de rulez.

It is a great game and I'm playing it along with two others before deciding my top three.

Great choice of palette :P same as mine I see. The DB16 :)
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Until the next time.