Parachute! Clone

[SOUR-Monkey]

I'm in the process of writing a clone of the classic game "Parachute!", and I'd like some feedback as to what people think so far.

Performance is pretty low at the moment, I can get it down to ~20 FPS on my eMac 700Mhz if I have a lot of choppers on-screen and burning at once. It would be great if you guys could give me a little feedback on how it runs on your machines.

Anyway, you can download it here (http://www.thepicturemaker.net/Chute.dmg) (approx. 344 kb).

So far all you can do is shoot the choppers. It's pretty simple, really. Just aim at the helicopter, and click. Boom!

[arekkusu]

The fps counter isn't very accurate, and hard to read because it changes every frame. With GLUT's VBL sync on, it reads 50-70s, with it off it goes 250-1000, on 1.25GHz PowerBook G4 (Radeon 9600.) Hint: don't use GLUT_ELAPSED_TIME, it's not accurate enough.

With VBL sync on, it looks like things are actually updating at ~60fps, like I'd expect. CPU usage is also fairly low, 20% or so... that is, until several helicopters are burning. Then it stays around 60fps but CPU usage jumps to 100%. So some bad code there...

Also, Bad Things Happen when I resize the window, including crashing.

Otherwise, looks like a good start! :)

[SOUR-Monkey]

The FPS counter changing so fast is deliberate, otherwise you can't see spikes very well. Maybe I'll do both: have an instant and an average FPS displayed. That would be more logical :)

About the window resizing, I'd actually forgotten about it so thanks for reminding me :P

As far as bad code goes, it's pretty much what I'd expected. My particle engine really guzzles processing time, and I'm not entirely sure how to fix it. Each particle has it's own texture and size, so I end up spending about 70% of my OGL time in glBegin() and glBindTexture() calls. I think I'll restructure it so that it is in groups, and I only bind and begin once per group, which I expect will be many times more efficient.

[drzeip]

I like the way that you can shoot one chopper down to make it crash into another. Maybe you could get a score multiply when you do that. What else do you plan for this game? I think side-scrolling levels would be cool with hills and stuff. Anyway nice stuff.

[JustinFic]

Fun stuff.

I'd like to be able to shoot a burning helicopter in mid-air, resulting in a bigger explosion. (I'm a sucker for gratuitous explosions.) Or maybe a second missle knocks it back up in the air a bit, so I can juggle it up into other choppers.

Keep it up!

[SOUR-Monkey]

Thanks for all the replies so far. Having a score multiply would be cool I think, I'll work on implementing it soon. Shooting helicopters in mid air I could do, maybe break the wreckage into more debris which would, of course, increase your chances of hitting another helicopter. Both nice ideas :)

Now... Side-scrolling. How would it sound to have some sort of tank or portable missile truck thing that can drive around the terrain, dodging bombs dropped by the choppers and launching missiles? I think that could be very fun, although it will be a lot of work to implement. I will try and get the game working as it is now, and once it's done I think I'll make it a side-scroller too.

[JustinFic]

Shooting helicopters in mid air I could do, maybe break the wreckage into more debris which would, of course, increase your chances of hitting another helicopter.

Perhaps you can juggle the chopper for a certain number of hits, after which it blows apart? And it would be cool if they crashed to the ground with a satisfying explosion when they hit the ground instead of falling off the screen.

Also, I just noticed that firing a bunch of missles into nothingness causes the framerate to plummet. Here's some numbers for a 1.3 GHz Albook (rough because I can't really read the FPS):

Fresh new game: Ocassionally spiking over 1000
1 missed missle: Stopped spiking at 1000, hovered around 500
10 missed missles: Ocassionally spiking over 100
50 missed missles: Stopped spiking at 100, hovered around 40-50
~100-150 missed missles: Never went above 10

Are you getting rid of missles that fly past the top of the screen? How about choppers that fall past the bottom?

[SOUR-Monkey]

I am destroying everything that goes off the bottom, the left or the right side of the screen. I left the top open because I originally had gravity that would eventually bring the missile back down, but I have since removed it. Anyway, the top will be closed in the next version :)

[drzeip]

That tank idea is exactly what i was thinking for the side scrolling stuff. Can't wait to see that finished :)

[JW Sipkes]

Well, it' a nice start. The explosions, smoke and rockets looks very nice.
I suggest you render some mountains in Bryce.

JW

[SOUR-Monkey]

Bryce? I thought it was long dead... Well, I can render mountains regardless. I'm currently working on other (paying) projects that have taken priority over this however, so I won't be able to update it for at least a few days.

Thanks for all the input so far guys, it's nice to know that it's not a complete waste of time. Being the first game I've ever written, I was kinda expecting it to get stomped on a bit :P

[JustinFic]

Bryce? I thought it was long dead... Well, I can render mountains regardless.

Pre-rendered Bryce mountains sort of limits what you can do with the terrain to simple background images, no? It would be much harder to do something like having choppers crash into the hills leaving scorch marks upon impact, for instance. Which would be cool.

Plus I have a personal thing with Bryce/Poser stuff. A person can take only so many alien landscapes and those freaky bug-eyed Poser models.

Thanks for all the input so far guys, it's nice to know that it's not a complete waste of time. Being the first game I've ever written, I was kinda expecting it to get stomped on a bit :P

No prob. Just keep the pyrotechnics coming and you got my vote ;)

[funkboy]

It seems the explosion moves kind of jerkily at the beginning, like it's stepping while it falls down - not just at the beginning, but all the way down. Just the biggest explosion, the one at the head of the helicopter when it falls.

Otherwise, nice job on the engine so far, my iMac 800 is getting like 80 fps consistently I'd say.

[SOUR-Monkey]

The "stepping" you are seeing may be because the biggest flame randomly jumps around the helicopter as it falls. Could this be what you are talking about?