Deflector

The table tennis balls are mad! Get out! Deflector is a frantic, challenging, 8-bit retro style, ball bouncing, arcade game full of sweet 80s music and explosions.

Deflector comes with the complete project setup and all source code for you to poke around in. Paying for the game is optional. Any money I make on Deflector goes towards further development. You can see what I plan to work on in the stretch goals below.

Be ready to:

• Create explosive chain reactions
• Dodge burning table tennis balls
• Score millions of points. Because millions are a thousand times better than thousands!
• Play four different hand drawn levels
• Explore four different game modes
• Challenge yourself in a few levels of difficulty
• Escape through doors

Instructions

• Smash table tennis balls with the X key
• Move around with the arrow keys

Stretch goals

If I make a few dollars on the game, I’ll add new features and improve existing ones. Here’s what I want to do when I reach…

$10	Replace the custom pixel art camera with Unity’s new pixel art camera. Publish a WebGL build, here at itch
$15	Add local highscore list
$20	Add support for PS4 and XB1 game controllers
$40	Local multiplayer
$80	Rewrite the game loop to not rely on the ScriptableObject events. Make the event flow easier to understand, and use ScriptableObject events for non-critical events, like playing audio and such
$100	Rewrite collision handling and projectile movement to use the new job system for parallelization
$125	Rewrite the projectiles to use the new Entity Component System

The readme file will be kept updated to reflect the new improvements and features. I’ll document as much as I think is necessary for you to read in order to understand the code. If something’s unclear, let me know and I’ll elaborate where necessary.

Newsletter

Sign up for my newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dEmUin to get occasional emails on subjects like:

• Updates on Deflector. I'll let you know if I reach a stretch goal and how progress is going on the work. You'll also get insights into how well the game sells
• Updates on other games I'm making
• How I survive as a freelance programmer in the games industry. How I get my jobs, how I figure out what rate to charge, networking, contacting prospective clients, keeping track of finances, and everything else needed to stay afloat as a freelancer

Get the source code

The complete project setup is available on Github with all the source code and some documentation. You can go download it from https://github.com/mandarinx/deflector right away and poke around in it.

The source code contains these goodies:

• Lots of examples of using ScriptableObjects as events and data containers
• A pixel art camera with a custom shader for rendering the game in a best fit size, center aligned, with crisp pixels
• Screen recorder for recording gameplay
• A very simple localization system
• Little to no spaghetti code. It's all decoupled macaroni code!

Stay in touch

Follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mandarinx. 

Poke around in my source code at https://github.com/mandarinx. 

Sign up for my newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dEmUin.