Hotline Scunthorpe, a simple 2D game.

Hotline Scunthorpe title screen.

 Over the past 2 weeks I've been working on a 2D game as a starter project for our 4th year module Advanced Games Engineering. We were told that as long as it met the criteria we had the freedom to choose what type of 2D game we made, even though the recommended game type was a side-scrolling shoot em' up (or shmup) style game. However I decided to challenge myself a bit and make a top-down room-to-room based shooter instead.

The required features were as follows:

• Simple gamestate system (start screen, pause screen, menu screen)
• Multiple Enemy types

• 

  Options menu: the resolutions and
  windowed/fullscreen modes available to the user.

  Powerups
• Multiple levels / Scaling difficulty
• High Score system

• Simple Sound
• Controller & keyboard support
• Simple Graphics options (Resolution & window mode)
• Windows 10 x64 support
• Single file .exe game installer/uninstaller

I decided to blatantly copy some of the fantastic, top-down shooter Hotline Miami's art style and theme, but set it sunny Scunthorpe. In terms of art and sound, a lot of it wasn't made by me. I used some assets by rileygombart off OpenGameArt, specifically the player character's sprite for both the starting pistol and also when he upgrades to a rifle. The rifle on the ground seen in the below image was made by -M I A O- here. Further to this I used sounds from SoundBible, with the pistol, turret and game win sounds by MikeKoenig, the rifle sound by Kibblesbob and the player death sound by thecheeseman. Thank you to all of these artists for their fantastic work. I made the rest (map textures, turrets, bullets and crosshair).

The first level, showcasing the basic turret
enemies and the available rifle power-up.

The game starts into the title screen where the player can navigate easily between the menus either using keyboard and mouse or a connected controller. On the options screen (accessible from the title menu or during the game by bringing up the pause menu) the player can change resolutions and toggle between windowed and fullscreen mode.

The rifle power-up's increased fire rate.

When the player clicks "Start" they load into the first level, showing a neon map with blue floors and pink walls, coming in from the left with only a starting pistol to defend themselves. In the game's current state there are no wall collisions so they are immediately bombarded by the bullets from nearby rotating turrets. The can move and shoot in any direction, with either mouse and keyboard or a connected controller. Once the turrets are dealt with (or beforehand if they're feeling brave) the rifle power-up can be picked up by walking over it, increasing their fire-rate.

Level 2, showing the tougher enemies.

After this they can proceed through the exit door (marked by the green floor at the edge of the screen), and face the new tougher enemies in the colour-inverted 2nd level, shown on the left. The previous level's single-barreled turrets have been upgraded to quad-barreled turrets on a large static base, shooting in all 4 directions at once. These new enemies are worth double points and help push up your score. If you kill everything and make it to the green exit, you will receive a satisfying "ta-da!" sound and be sent to start screen with the max score. As of now there are only 2 levels.

Game Over! The screen shown when a player is killed
by the turrets. A score of 1 is pretty bad too.

High scores screen when there have been
30 or more attempts.

If at any point the turret's bullets get you, your character lets out an "urgh!" and you are shown the game over screen, displaying your score and the option to go back to the start or to quit. Once an attempt has been made the player can look at the high scores page, which shows all the scores of the current session. The list adjusts based on the number of attempts, up to 30 scores, after which the score won't be shown.

The high scores screen showcasing
this session's attempts.

The game was ultimately successful in that it met all the required criteria and was delivered within the time frame of less than 2 weeks. The game can be downloaded here, simply follow the instructions on the installer. To uninstall you can run the uninstaller and it will clear all of its files and folders off your computer.

I will look to add wall collisions, new upgrades, enemies and levels in my own time in the near future, to make it feel like a more complete game.

    - Beej