Space Shooter is a retro arcade shooter where the player is tasked with dodging or destroying enemies to reach the highest score possible. It was programmed in Python using the Pygame plugin and is released on itch.io for free: https://generalfm.itch.io/space-shooter.
I created Space Shooter as the final assignment for a game programming module in my second year of University. I based the core design of Space Shooter on classic scrolling shooters, as I wanted to create my own interpretation of the genre. Since this genre is well established, I didn’t need to dive too deeply into the core elements of the games design and instead focused on designing interesting enemy types that the player would encounter.
I approached the design of each enemy type with the goal of making them require a slightly different strategy to combat them. As such, each enemy type will challenge the player in a slightly different way, and when combined together create challenging scenarios the player must navigate.
Space Shooter uses a procedural system to generate the waves of enemies and spawns waves faster the longer the player survives. This provides a dynamic experience that provides challenging moments, when difficult waves are sent successively, interspersed with lulls that give the player a chance to take a breath.
The combination of these two systems creates a replayable experience that doesn’t become too predictable or challenging but still allows for a level of conformity between high scores.
