nV@derz! / News: Recent posts

nV@derz! 0.9.1 is a cosmetic and performance update. The slightly modified game screen graphics give the game a new look, but more importantly, should offer a performance boost for slower computer systems.

The old screen graphics were a single image laid over the entire playing area of the game. This meant that transparency had to be calculated for the entire screen for every frame of the game. The new design allowed for splitting the interface into four areas that are drawn around the playing area without any need for transparency.... read more

If you play nvaderz version 0.4.9.2 without the sounds from the optional ResourcePack installed, the game will crash when a bomb or missile hits the player. The game doesn't check to make sure that sounds are enabled before attempting to use the sound, causing a crash.

The bug has been fixed in CVS, so you can either checkout and build the source code from the repository or make sure you're using sounds from the latest ResourcePack until a new release is uploaded here.

This is a small update that adds a few new event sounds to the nvaderz game:
- player regeneration
- impact missile alert
- impact missile blast
- extra life bonus

At the moment, only a source code tarball is available. It is easy to compile the game with the make build system if you have the Allegro 4.2.2. game library installed. But Linux binaries for both x86 and PowerPC systems are on the way.... read more

nVaderz 0.4.9.1 is now available for download, initially as a source code tarball, and within a day or so there will be Linux binaries for x86 and PowerPC.

Since version 0.4.5, there are now player bonuses: repeat fire, guided missile, one-way shield, and score-based extra lives; a new enemy bonus: impact missile; and some minor improvements and bug fixes.

For sounds, download the ResourcePack for version 0.4.5. There will be some events that won't have a sound, but that will be fixed in the next minor release.

Just to let you know, the latest CVS version of nVaderz represents most of the features planned for a 0.4.9 release before I decided to push on to 0.5.

Since the last release, there are now player bonuses: repeat fire, guided missile, one-way shield, and score-based extra lives; a new enemy bonus: impact missile; and some minor improvements and bug fixes.

The only things missing before declaring the game "halfway done" was one major game feature (invisible invaders), some bug fixes, and selecting sounds.... read more

The latest development release of nvaderz, v.0.4.5, finally adds sounds to the game, thanks to the excellent sound sample database at http://freesound.iua.edu, whose user-submitted sounds are licensed under a Creative Commons license.

The sound files were briefly available in CVS, but were removed to keep checkout sizes down. From now on, the latest sounds and graphics can be downloaded in a separate Resource Pack, available in the download section. All original working graphics will still be available in CVS, but updated versions will be posted in the Resource Packs when they're available. All or any part of the nvaderz Resource directory can be substituted with its corresponding file in the Resource Pack.

There have been pretty regular CVS commits in recent weeks, the most prominent being high score functionality, which was checked in today.

The game reads in a scores file, if it exists, and displays the current scores on the main menu when "High Score" is highlighted. If one of 15 high scores are beaten, a custom dialog lets the player enter a name using an on-screen "keypad" that is navigated with the arrow keys, and the "keys" are pressed with the space bar. This type of dialog was chosen to be joystick-friendly once that functionality is in place.... read more

The first nV@derz! (nvaderz) source code and Resource files were checked in to CVS on May 2, 2007.

Currently the game is at version 0.2.0 and is considered pre-alpha, but playable. The code is pretty ugly, but should compile on systems supported by the Allegro game library ( http://alleg.sourceforge.net/ ) version 4.2 or later. The most recent CVS check-in this morning added a timer, so game speed should now be consistent across different systems/platforms.... read more