Project: Starfighter - News: Project: Starfighter 1.3 Released

Project: Starfighter 1.3 Released

Item posted by Layla Marchant <onpon4> on Mon 06 Apr 2015 10:02:48 PM UTC.

In 2003, Parallel Realities released a game called Project: Starfighter. It was buggy, badly balanced, and had graphics that infringed copyright, but it was a lot of fun.

Then, in 2012, Guus Sliepen and some others picked up the game, replaced all the graphics and sounds with libre graphics and sounds, and fixed several bugs. This was version 1.2 of Project: Starfighter. But it was still somewhat buggy, lacked any music, and had one mistake in the graphics (asteroid and ore graphics that were not properly licensed). It also did nothing to address the balance problems of the original.

Now, I come to you with a new release of Project: Starfighter: 1.3, and I will be continuing to improve this game from now on. You can download it here:

http://starfighter.nongnu.org

Changes to this version of Project: Starfighter, compared to version 1.2, are:

• Replaced the improperly licensed asteroid and ore graphics with libre ones.

• Added new music from OpenGameArt.org.

• Added several additional control options. Particularly helpful if the original layout causes keyjamming on your keyboard.

• Improved joystick support. Or maybe it was added in this version; I don't remember. Anyway, what I personally did was give it a layout that tends to work well on most controllers.

• Difficulty levels! The new difficulty levels, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Nightmare!, all are about as difficult as their names suggest, and difficulty now progresses rather than regressing, like it did in the original. If you want the original experience, there's also a difficulty level called "Original", which imitates the original experience as closely as possible.

• Improved weapon balance. Most significantly: the micro missiles have been slightly buffed, the charge cannon has been nerfed, and the multi homing missiles have been made less expensive. Additionally, except in "Original" difficulty, the charge cannon has been made a bit more difficult to use: you can only use either the charge cannon or plasma at any given time, and waiting until the charge cannon charges completely causes it to be instantly fired. The Charge Cannon is still quite powerful, but no longer as much of a must-have as it was in the original.

• Much improved camera. You still move faster than it as before, but the camera no longer acts as a mysterious barrier that slows you down; when you reach the border of the camera, it causes the camera to move faster, rather than causing you to move slower. Additionally, except in "Original" difficulty, the camera centers on you if you're not moving.

• Free movement in autoscrolling levels. This was actually an accidental consequence of the camera not slowing you down when you push against the edge, but I decided to keep it as a feature. It makes these scrolling levels feel much less boxed in, and in particular, the mission at Ellesh no longer feels like a waiting mission, because you can just move in the direction of the transport.

• Target arrows for every ship! Not implemented by me, but it was implemented after the 1.2 release. What I did is remove the option to only show one target, or to not show any targets. It just always shows all targets now (with "Target" printed next to the arrow of the primary target).

• The shop has been adjusted. You now buy and sell things for exactly the same amount at the shop. Prices have also been adjusted, and when you buy something that needs to automatically give you something else, you have to pay the cost of both items (so that there isn't an advantage to avoiding buying a temporary upgrade because you want the permanent upgrade soon).

• Anti-grinding measures have been hardened, except in "Original" difficulty. The original made grinding not worthwhile, but now, grinding is completely impossible at interceptions (and powerups now behave in a special way there). Incidentally, this also gives a niche to buying plasma ammo from the store, since you can't collect plasma ammo from the ships. It's still possible to grind in many of the levels, if you really want to (but not the money collection missions).

• Improved autosave. It now has a dedicated slot, rather than taking up one of the main slots, and autosaves every time something changes (notably, when you travel to a different planet, and when you buy something). It is now on by default and can't be turned off, since there's no longer a reason to do so.

• Several additional bugfixes. Most notably, the Charge Cannon was previously behaving completely incorrectly when it destroyed an enemy; its lifetime was reduced, but because of a bug in the code, it often ended up being increased instead, and it continued to inflict the same amount of damage. Now, the Charge Cannon's damage reduces when it destroys an enemy. Also, it doesn't make that annoying explosion sound when it dissipates in the distance, now.

• Improved code quality. This is still a work-in-progress, but already, several annoying magic numbers and other problems with the original code have been removed. This is on top of the code quality improvements already done by Guus et al.

I hope you enjoy this release! Please let me know what you think of this version; what changes you like, what changes you don't like, etc.