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https://github.com/tlsa/peltar

Two dimensional gravity-based space combat game
https://github.com/tlsa/peltar

2d game procedural-generation space

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Two dimensional gravity-based space combat game

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Peltar: 2D gravity-based space combat game

==========================================



> **Note**: This game is unfinished and not actively developed.



Peltar is a game for two players who must each try to shoot the other player's

ship.  Missiles are affected by the gravity of the intervening planets.  It

is based on an

[Acorn Archimedes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes) game called

[Planet Warfare](https://github.com/tlsa/peltar/issues/5#issuecomment-955704718)

that I played when I was much younger.



![Peltar screenshot](https://repository-images.githubusercontent.com/415364809/75c1dfef-ab2a-42e3-9ef4-18559ae0aa8a)



It was developed on Linux in C using SDL.



Why?

----



Before I got a job, I bought "Texturing and Modeling: A Procedural Approach",

and I wanted to experiment with making a fixed-point

[Perlin noise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perlin_noise) generator.



I also had an idea for rendering 3D spheres using 2D techniques.  (Basically

drawing a circle and indexing into a texture with a bit of lookup-tabled maths

to select a pixel colour that would give the illusion of 3D.)



It is unfinished, although it is playable.  Most of what remains to do is

main menu, setting up a game, score keeping, etc.



Compile and run

---------------



To build, type:



```

make

```



To build the test programs I used to develop individual features, run:



```

make test

```



To play the game, run:



```

./peltar

```



You can run in fullscreen mode with the `-f` command line flag.

The window width/height can also be set via the command line:



```

./peltar -w800 -h600

```



Playing

-------



It's a two player turn-based game on a single computer.



* The mouse is used to set a firing direction.

  There are little crosshairs next to the player ship

  (a sphere, because I had already written a sphere renderer).

* The strength of the shot is controlled using the mouse scroll

  wheel, and is indicated by the bar at the top of the screen.

* Fire by clicking the mouse button.



The screen border colour indicates which player's turn it is.



The game ends when either player ship is hit.



### Fooling around



Since it was primarily made for playing around with graphics and procedural

generation, there are a few keys that can be used to change things.



| Key | Action                                   |

| --- | ---------------------------------------- |

| `a` | Toggle planet rotation animation on/off. |

| `b` | Generate a new background star-scape.    |

| `l` | Toggle the 3D lighting effect on/off.    |

| `t` | Generate new planet textures.            |

| `z` | Toggle the zoomed-out view.              |



There are also several test programs.  My favourites are:



* `./test-texture` shows an Earth texture I found on the internet and my

  attempt to generate something close to an Earth-like planet.  It was

  helpful while tweaking the texturing code.  The `t` key generates a new

  random planet texture.  I never got around to adding ice caps at the poles.



* `./test-planet` was the first thing written to test the sphere rendering

  algorithm.  If run with any command line argument, it will render a fixed

  number of frames of planet rotation and then exit.  I used it to benchmark

  different optimisations for performance.