ACED

© Jason Tribbeck 2006

What is ACED?

ACED is a fast-action 3D space shooter - like Elite without the trading, or Starship Command in 3D. It's also similar to Magentoids (I've been informed).

If anyone is worried about copyright, then please read the Final Report of the National Commission on New Technology Uses of Copyrighted Works.

Beta versions

26th November 2006

Okay, I've been doing other things than this, but occasionally I do a little work on it.

Today, I've now released ACED_R3, probably as the final beta. It's downloadable from here - it's nearly 900K in size (but still a lot smaller than other games!)

What's new since the earlier release:

• Changed all background graphics
• Fixed bug when inputting high score, game will crash
• Added bordered fonts so white text can be plotted on a light background
• Removed edge fade effects so plotting on an Iyonix should be much faster (damn these graphics cards which are slow to read from the screen!)

I thought I'd done some more stuff, but they've already been reported in the R2 release (slightly embarrased by that!). The "ACED_R3" file will have these present as "new" additions, and a couple from above won't be there. I'll fix this text for the next release. Certainly the longest work was done in the new background graphics!

If you want to keep your existing scores - make a backup of the "scores" file inside the "res" directory before overwriting with this version.

New graphics

Here are the new graphics

Note that I think I may have softened the player explosions a little bit - I can't remember exactly! The graphics are rendered at 1280x960, to allow me to scale them for other screen resolutions.

17th July 2006

Some people have been reporting some problems - namely Iyonix, A9home and ViewFinder.

For the Iyonix people, I've provided an uncompressed executable and relocatable module - FahZhi is 32-bit (it loads on the A9home - which, as has been pointed out to me, is much more picky than the Iyonix). I've also removed the IRQ code so if there's a problem with that, it shouldn't happen (Equinox already has this done to it - and that works fine on the Iyonix).

For the A9home, A6 have given me a replacement video driver - I'm not sure how distributable it is yet; I'll get clarification on that. However, I'm now able to play it on my A9home without music (something's not quite right with the A9home's sound). They've also kindly altered my code so it's not as flickery as before (I gave them parts of the source when the flickeriness was pointed out to me).

Note: This replacement video driver is not available for release at present - I've been told it has not gone to the beta testers yet, so please do not ask me, nor Advantage6 for the driver.

I don't know about the ViewFinder problem at present, I'm afraid... It may be that the user who's told me of the problem has an 8-bit sound system, rather than a 16-bit one (I've only just thought of that!).

In any case, you can start it with the music by running "run", and if that crashes at the start (you'll probably get 3 lines of code and then nothing), try the non-music version ("runNoMus") instead. This will allow me to pinpoint if it's the music or something else that's failing.

Anyway, ACED_R2b is now available from here.

16th July 2006

R2 is now available from here. It's had a few things done to it:

• Added music and effects (including volume controls - volume is stored)
• FahZhi now loaded correctly
• Changed some characters in the font
• Now performs a more rigorus check of keys, so you should be able to change the volume at all times (except when entering your name in the highscore table)
• Keys actually do what they're meant to do :)
• Re-aligned high score table to fit blanked out area
• Added new ship
• Removed primary colour restriction on ship colours *
• Rotated point of light colouring for visual appeal
• Added engine colour cycling
• Increased inter-level text
• Added "bad score, good performance" (so if you've done well overall, and just had a bad level, you can continue)
• Visual artefact from old code removed when ship explodes
• Can't pick powerups while ship explodes (difficult to do anyway :) )

* Yes, the ships are still primarily primary colours. The reason for this is that it makes it easier to see, and also, as I'm currently using solid colours, you don't get too many visual artefacts.

I've had a really good game...

10th July 2006

I've written some music - although pretty boring at this moment in time. I may change it later on - it depends on how inspired I get!

I've also made available an "R1" release for RISC OS. It should work on StrongARM RPC; may work on Iyonix too, but almost certainly won't work on the A9home at present (I need a SharedCLibrary that supports long long multiplication/division or wite my own - which I can't really be bothered with).

The R1 release is a bit rough in places - I'm not worried at all about bugs (please don't tell me for the moment - I'd be inundated with emails!) - it's mainly to let people see how it plays. Despite writing the music (and the FahZhi vesion of it), I haven't incorporated it into this yet. You need long filenames (but not long directories, so !LongFiles should be okay for non-E+ format discs).

You can download it from here - again please do not tell me about bugs unless it doesn't work - it is very work in progress.

IMPORTANT The zip file has a mistake in it - edit the "run" file and remove the line that reads: Edit 2019/10/17: I have no idea what you're actually meant to do!

The R1 release is NOT available for Windows, Linux, MacOS or GP2X.

Work in progress screenshots

24th May 2006

I actually did this work yesterday, but it's gone midnight now, so it's now the 24th. Likewise for the 23rd (i.e. I did the work on the 22nd, but went past midnight when I took the screenshots and uploaded them).

I've removed the grey sections at the top - they were going to have the energy levels, angle/speed indicators and score, but I decided to make it a bit at the top instead.

23rd May 2006

I've decided that the game will actually be played in a 2D rotated plane - it was unplayable (the enemies would be everywhere, and very difficult to shoot due to the speed of it all).