Gravity Edge, a game for the first week of Game Programming by Philippe Ajoux, featuring pure awesomeness and music by Eugene Kang (CMU Senior).
Controls: [Arrow Keys] to move, [z] to unleash gravity field, [q] to quit.
Sorry about the Git repository/revision history. I've never used it before (I use SVN, don't like it, but just use it for another project so I am familiar with it, that said, it kinda sucks...anyway). So, I had some issues with it and in the end I have not revision history! Sorry! But, this was a pretty small project. Most of the code base (since there is quite a bit of it) is all code I wrote towards the end of summer for a game I am currently working on that uses SDL/OpenGL. So, because of this I have a particle system, some graphic related things, shaders, and other stuff that is pretty useful for a game.
I wanted to create a fast-paced shooter-style action game where the player destroys enemies by deploying "gravity holes" (kinda like little black holes). I want to have the player constantly on the edge--the edge of gravity!
Given the time constraints, I went as simple as I could get with my key concept. So, I simply have the user control a ship on a set field of play. Random enemies spawn and travel across the screen. The ship has a circle around it that shows the size of the gravity field the player can unleash. The closer the user gets to enemies, the larger the field gets. As such, to get a higher score, the player must get closer to enemies. This creates a feeling of being on the "edge of gravity", or at gravities edge. In the prototype, the player can die, respawn, unleash gravity fields, and destroy enemies. The difficulty and enemy spawns are totally random and not very well thought out. However, you can easily imagine that with some more work, it could be a pretty cool game.
The novelty is the mechanism for destroying enemies. This game is very much like "Every Extend", "Everyday Shooter", and "Geometry Wars". You are a ship and kill other ships. However, instead of using bullets (or suicide), you have a gravity field generator. To my knowledge this has not been done. However, the key novelty is that the field is larger when closer to an enemy. This creates the need to get closer to enemies and achieve BULLET GRAZING. This concept has been done before. I got my inspiration from "Bangai-O". In effect, I combined all these games to make mine. In the end, it is a new experience.
I think the game works. The feeling of fun and face-paced action is achieved. Getting close to the enemies to get larger scores while dodging is fun and hard. The game graphics were done very quickly, and although not wonderful, seem to work pretty nicely. The scoring and difficulty (enemy spawns, etc.) is not great, and needs lots of tweaking. Also, it would be cool to somehow add more to getting close the enemies. Maybe make your score multiplier higher the larger the field so that you get an even bigger benefit from getting closer to the enemies. That could all be explored. Also, maybe bullets that must be dodged and cannot be killed, to add more fun. Otherwise, as a prototype of a fun experience, I think Gravity Edge did it's job.