Alien Game Prototype

For one of the Ludum Dare mini competitions a few months back I started hacking together a simple arcade style game.  The human race is being attacked an eaten by a vicious alien species.  You play the role of a benevolent alien who comes to the rescue of the helpless humans.

Originally the only defence the hero had against the invading aliens was going to be a tractor beam — where you must grab and throw the aliens to get rid of them.  After showing it to the Pipe Cleaner Man he insisted that I added lasers and homing missiles, so I did.

I’m not certain what I’m going to do with this project.  As it began as a quick hack for a 48 hour competition, it is not very well designed.  It would need a considerable amount of rewriting before being able to transform it into a real game.

For the time being I think I’ll hold off before posting the actual game for download.  I would like to add at least a simple scoreboard and actually being able to win or lose before sharing it.

Way back in July I wrote this simplified Super Mario Brothers 3 game for the Mini Ludum Dare (a 48 hour mini-competition) that month.  The theme of the competition was a game based on a movie.  The movie that I picked was “The Wizard,” which is a movie about some kids who hitchhike across several states playing Nintendo games — so this would have been a video game about a movie about video games.

Originally I was going to have elements from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Double Dragon (both also featured in the movie) all tied together with an arcade style game where you control Jimmy and play these mini-games against people.  I figured if I made the Super Mario Brothers 3 part (which is the final showdown against Lucas) then I could easily adapt that to make the other parts.

All-in-all it was a little over ambitious, but I think I could have possibly pulled it off if I actually had two full days.  That saturday I went to watch a movie with friends, so I really only had one of the two days to work with.  I am, however, still very satisified with how much was accomplished in such a short amount of time.

Arrow Keys makes mario run, ‘x’ key makes him jump.

Download “The Wizard – The Game.”

Requires Python and PyGame.