This one includes a couple of new features that the old version didn't have. First, it allows you to send assault waves backwards. Second, when they get done being directed, they circle around the outside edge and return from the back like they do in Galaxian.

This version is zoomed out more than the final game will be. Large enough that I can watch them circle around, following the edge of the outer rectangle. That's all intended to happen off-screen. Your view will actually be only slightly bigger than the inner rectangle.

With respect to the bigger picture, I still feel like I'm way behind where I had hoped to be at this point. I got quite a bit done today, but I'm going to need several more good days like this to feel like I'll finish what I had initially envisioned. Stay tuned…

Below is a screenshot of where I'm at right now:

As you can see, I got rid of the Coral background and made it just black. More importantly, you can now send your ships forward to attack the enemy (which doesn't exist yet). They go to the location that you told them to go to (multiple locations if you set it up that way) and then circle back around and re-enter the main formation. Seeing it in action, it confirms what I was thinking earlier that this is going to feel a lot more like Galaxian/Galaga than Space Invaders.

We now have exactly four weeks until the deadline. I'm hoping that by the end of this next week (by next Sunday evening) I'll have a functional prototype that does all of the basics. We'll see how that goes. Evenings during the work week are always a lot harder to get stuff done on.

By the way, I think my favorite part about making this game has actually been not directly making the game, but hanging out (I'm using that term loosely) with the other people who are doing this with me. It's been a lot of fun to see what everyone else is up to, and see people making progress. It has also been fun to talk with people in the chat room about game development or just whatever comes up. The last week or so is the first time that my site had any of the feeling of a community to it, and I've really been enjoying it!

As you can see in the image above, I'm thinking about adjusting the angle of the game to side-to-side, instead of vertical. I'm not sure it makes all that much of a difference, but I need to leave room for a gigantic boss-sized evil human ship, and I'm not sure that a vertical arrangement would give me enough room. I kind of need to see it in action before making a decision.

Please ignore the barf colored background. It's called "Coral", and it's only there because I typed "Cor" for CornflowerBlue, and then hit Ctrl + Space, which selected this.

Anyway, excited to see what you come up with! Good developing!

The stories you were told are lies.

We came in peace, seeking refuge. The last survivors of a lost war more ancient than the Earth itself.

By the time your leaders understood this, millions of us were already dead, and the only way they could see to stay in power was through a cover up and a quick end for our civilization.

For my entry into the Space Invaders competition, I'm planning on creating a version of it where you don't control the Core Cannon and kill the aliens en masse, but rather, you control the aliens as they try to survive the brutal assault of the evil Earthlings!

What pulled me to this idea (aside from not wanting to do just a straight up SI clone, which I already did in Java/OpenGL a while back) is that in most games, you run around and kill dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of grunts. The player character is several orders of magnitude better than their enemies. In this game, the roles are reversed. You are the Stormtroopers who can't hit a target 20 feet away, and fall down dead when your friend gets shot despite having armor.

Yes… thousands of your alien pals will die in the fight. But your job is to get as many of them to survive as you can, against stronger and stronger Earth ships—a never ending supply of boss-level constructions.

It took me a while to figure out what the mechanics of this game was going to be like, and in the end, what I came up with is going to feel more like Galaxian/Galaga than Space Invaders, but I'm OK with that.

I'm excited to get started on this game in a few days!