Asteroid Belt (2009)
| Game Info | |
| Name: | Asteroid Belt |
| Year: | 2009 |
| Made in: | DarkBASIC Pro |
| Download ZIP (Windows) | |
I remember being so excited when I finally bought DarkBASIC as a kid. This was it. This was going to help me make real games instead of those darn fake games I made in Klik 'n Play. I think the emotional impact DarkBASIC had on my life was pretty significant; it really felt like it was the next step up in programming video games for me. But in hindsight I really only barely played around with it, making some prototypes but nothing at all substantial. (Fun fact: my obsession with making custom visual novel engines inferior to Ren'Py started with DarkBASIC!)
I did make two actual games, although to call them "full" or "complete" is a bit of a stretch. Still, they were quite a lot of fun to play and make, and this page is dedicated to both of them! Why do they not get their own separate pages? Well... you'll see.
Asteroid Belt is simple in premise and execution, but honestly? It's quite fun for what it is. I remember randomly playing this in my free time (which was all the time back in 2009) when I was younger. I knew it was simple back then, but there was something addicting about its simplicity. Also the final levels are quite difficult and fun to beat.
After the success of Asteroid Belt, I knew I had to follow it up with a sequel. Something bigger and better! I wanted to make the sequel good enough to actually share with the larger DarkBASIC community. While I don't remember if I did end up sharing the game with the community, I did at least make a functioning sequel called Space Junk Cleanup.
Game Description:
Asteroid Belt is a very simple game. You could consider it an automatic runner if that genre existed when this game was made. You pilot a space ship through a randomly generated "asteroid belt", moving left and right to dodge them so you can get to the end. Once you reach the end, the ship speeds up and you must go through the asteroid belt again. Do that enough times and you win!
Images:
Links:
You can download the game ZIP here.
Space Junk Cleanup (2009)
| Game Info | |
| Name: | Space Junk Cleanup |
| Year: | 2009 |
| Made in: | DarkBASIC Pro |
| Download ZIP (Windows) | |
You know how Yoshi's Island on the SNES is technically called Super Mario World 2, even if it plays nothing like the original? I feel like I wanted to capture that same feeling for the sequel to Asteroid Belt. Instead of being an auto-runner type game where you just have to dodge obstacles and get to the end of the course, this game gives you more direct two-dimensional control over your space ship. Instead of dodging a linear path of obstacles, you instead have to search through a two dimensional plain of obstacles.
On paper, it felt like a good successor. Asteroid Belt's main gameplay was essentially one dimensional in terms of player input, and this game expanded that to give you full control over the ship. In practice... it just wasn't as fun as the original. This game was slower and much more methodical, and while it did have small moments where you'd have to dodge the titular space junk just like in Asteroid Belt, it just didn't feel the same.
However, on a more positive note, this game really does feel like a sequel in other ways. It's much more polished, featuring a skysphere, better particle effects, sound effects, and even a custom 3D model for the ship (it's just a flattened sphere). In replaying it for this writeup I'm actually... quite impressed with the camera in particular. It is unbelievably smooth for a 3D game I made in 2009.
Game Description:
Navigate your ship through a cluster of space junk and try to collect all 10 green spheres! Try to aim for the lowest time!
Images:
Links:
You can download the game ZIP here.