Invaders From Earth

2003 DarkBasic Alien Compo Entry

I have finished my entry for The Game Creators Alienware Competition. Alas, I did not win. I didn't even get in the top 10! However, I did get an honorable mention!

In my game, Earth is invading Mars with land Rovers which are trying to commercialize Mars by bombarding it with commercials and building a mega mall.

Using your Alien Army, you must strategize and do what it takes to stop the Earthlings from turing the Peacful Martian planet into a Commercialized Wasteland!

Judge's Review - January 2004:

Earth has invaded the peaceful planet of Mars, sending up its Mars Rovers to take supplies needed to build a massive shopping Mall (I guess NASA missed that one). It's your job to prevent this from happening by aligning your aliens so that their energy barriers drain the Rovers and stop the construction from taking place. Despite the strange plot this is a really fascinating puzzle game. Most of the game takes place on a 10x10 grid with an increasing range of obstructions. You place your aliens, place the beam wall and then let rip to see where the Rovers go. If they pass through your alien beam wall then their power is drained, if they pass through enough beams then the eventual power they take to the Mall building site is so little it doesn't have as much effect as a fully power-loaded Rover, also the more you drain the more alien power-ups you get to play with. It's a hard game to describe but a fantastic one to play. I was literally hooked on it for hours trying to build the most cunning beam walls possible in order to drain those Rovers! Each level is introduced with a more varied and interesting animated sequence and it is hard to find any serious faults with the game. The only things we would mention is that it can tend to slow down when there are lots of rovers on-screen, also the Construction phase takes a long time to appear the more complicated it gets. But these are minor points and this game comes highly recommended.

- - - Final Version Available - - -
Freeware Game Download!

Click Here to Download the latest and greatest version. (13,912,216 bytes).

This game was written in DarkBasic Professional, and it requires DirectX 9 to be installed on your computer.

The game has an in-game Help System. All of the rules are explained there, as well as a couple of hints.

This game comes complete with:

4 different levels of game play. Each is based in a different themed landscape.

Almost 10 minutes of story and animations (even longer if you have an older video card!!!)

7 page in-game Help System

Weather effects such as moving clouds and thunder/lightning!

A Continue Game feature, so that you don't have to start over from the beginning if your game is over.

Program Version History

Release Name	Description	Lines of Source Code
First Beta available for download.	4 Levels of play. 4 intro scenes.	3771
First Submission	I made letters appear on top of each rover as it is driving through the gameboard. I added music and sound effects to the game. Previously, level 4 was too easy, and level 2 was too hard. I reworked them both. On Level 4, Earth used to drop off the Rovers right through the cave. I added a new scene outside the cave. Earth will drop off the rovers, and they will drive in the cave. I made the Main Menu. Now, the program doesn't start right in the game.	4504
Second Submission	I fixed a bug that made the rain object stay visible if you lose the game on level 3. I made lightning strike once during each wave of level 3. I added a few new commercials, and I made it so that the same commercial is never used twice during the same wave. I added a Continue function. This way, after you lose the game, you can either start over at Level 1 or you can start at the level you just left off at. I made all of the aliens walk in different steps. Previously, they were all animated together, and they all looked like they were hypnotized. Now it looks more natural. I fixed a camera bug that made it so you could only watch the Intro to scene 1 one time. This was because I used the "TURN CAMERA" function to turn the camera. Never again! From now on, I will only use the "POINT CAMERA" command. I rewrote the Game Lose sequence. Now, the mall opens, and the aliens go in it. The last one tries to resist, but he gets sucked in!!! I rewrote the Game Victory sequence. Now, the mall is destroyed and it is lying shattered in 500 pieces.	4774

Finished Product - In Game Screen Shots

	Title Screen, complete with Alienware logo.
	The Aliens admire statues built by their forefathers.
	Level 1 - Uber Land
	Earth swoops down and drops off 5 Rovers each time.
	Here, an Earth Rover is carrying supplies to the construction site of the Mega Mall.
	Level 2 - Uber Hills
	The picture on the left shows the player setting up the game board and determining where to place his 30 aliens. In the image on the right, you can see what it looks like on the actual playing board.
	The Blue Team Leader is high upon Uber Rock. He is casting a spell to flood the land.
	This rover is driving through the rain.
	These aliens are seeking refuge in the Uber Cave.
	These rovers are on their way to the Uber Cave.
	Here are gameplay scenes from Level 4.
	If you cannot stop the Mall from being built by the Earth Rovers, the Martians will be brainwashed, sucked into it, and forced to buy stuff.
	After you beat the game, the aliens are celebrating in front of the mall that has been completely destroyed!

BONUS - Put in your own custom image!

There is a Mall that is built in this game, which is split up into 500 pieces. The image for the Mall is cut up into small parts for each mall piece.

You can put in your own picture for the Mall image. For instance, you can put in a picture of yourself, and see yourself built up piece by piece!

To make the game use a custom mall image, simply make a Bitmap image that is 200 pixels wide and 100 pixels high. Then, name it "mall.bmp", and put it in the same directory as the game. When the game starts, it will load your custom image instead of its own Space Mall image.


Normal Space Mall Image	Here's what a custom image looks like textured onto the mall. This is the classic DarkBASIC Pyramid logo image.

Game Music

The song that you hear on the menu and on the level intro scenes I got from a CD of royalty free drum beats.

The song that you hear that is playing throughout the actual game itself is a song that I wrote called "Caving". I synthesised it with EMU's Planet Phatt system.

Development Screen Shots - Behind the Scenes

	Prototype #1 - October 9, 2003
	Prototype #2 - October 9, 2003
	Prototype #3 - October 12, 2003
	This is the editor that the player will use to place the alien walls - November 10, 2003
	The last level of this game will take place inside of this dark cave. - December 2, 2003
	Here, the aliens are trying to block the invading Earth Rovers - December 5, 2003
	The aliens have different abilities - December 5, 2003
	The Earthlings are building a Mega Mall on Mars. The building is actually in 500 pieces. The Mall Image is one bitmap, that is cut into 50 images and put onto the 500 mall pieces. In order for me to get them all lined up correctly, I had to paint numbers on the corners of them as a point of reference. - December 7, 2003
	There are large stone statues of the aliens that were established by their forefathers. - December 19, 2003
	In the intro of Level 1, I wanted a lense flare effect when the camera looked up at the statue and into the sun. To do this, I used a ghosted sunshot image. In this image, you can see here as I was placing it before it was ghosted. This picture reminded me of building a set in drama class, and how every scene was made up of flat sets. - December 28, 2003

Scott Nelson, a.k.a. TobyQuan can be reached at TobyQuan@HotMail.com

TItle	Release Date	Description
Scott's Game Library
Jaiden Bubbles	6/23/2001	Pop the Bubbles, Save the Aquarium!
Town Hall Toaster	9/24/2003	Cook Giant Toast to feed the Hungry Taxpayers!
Invaders From Earth	1/2/2004	2003 DarkBasic Alien Compo Entry
A Time to Warp	8/7/2004	Acoders Indie Game Making Competition 2004 Entry
3D Primeleon	1/30/2005	January 2005 DarkBasic Primitives Competition Entry
The Adventures of Sugar Pup	10/26/2011	Help Sugar Pup Collect Points
Galaxxor	9/9/2013	Space Shooter with tons of perks
Blue Igloo	10/22/2013	A Guinea Pig, a Map, and a Blue Igloo
Heartland Mystery	4/20/2016	Heartland Ranch Mystery Game!
Sea Blaster	8/1/2017	Engage the enemy in this epic 3D Sea Adventure!
Dinger Finger	9/1/2018	Round up girls on the Bus!

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