UPDATED Download (based on YOUR feedback):
HERE
‘Grinder’ is a placeholder name for a game that I’ve been working on. -One I would like to share…
Its 110% inspired by ‘Silkworm’ for the amiga 500, a co-op sidescrolling war game featuring a jeep and an attack helicopter taking on “all the bad guys” at once.
While its a very simple game, I did go all out on the features, and I think I’ve achieved a fairly rich play experience.
Its all composed of 2d sprites I MOSTLY made myself; (there is an easter-egg from dukenukem)…
Everything has sound, no music.
Sound effects from free tools, and intro sound mixed from the internets public archives.
The visual componants for the menues are the weakest point I think, a low priority item on my list.
That said, they function as expected, and your settings are saved.
Title screen / main menu:
Under settings, you can set the game to any screen size. Its all drawn to a rendertarget that is then scaled to any size you want up to 1920*1080, and adjust for the most common aspect ratios.
I’ll show you a couple of pics of game play, as I explain whats going on…
There are a lot of fun things that are hard for me to capture using only the prt scr key, and I dont want to go on forever, so this is only a slice of the full cake…
Some main features I want to advertise a bit that dont come across on the images, are unit behaviors and combat. Besides ofcoarse the scrolling background and foreground layers… I went out of my way to do death sequences and unique animations for all the enemies. They all have different attributes and can be combined in fun ways. Guns and rockets haves smoke puffs, things explode, mines lift your wheels off the ground, and theres even a camera shake when things heat up.
The jeep has mouse-aim, with a zoomed in scope for aiming. Yes, it really magnifies 
Players and enemies collide with the terrain, no matter how complex the shape. So you actually roll across any terrain you bother drawing - a colorcoded collision image, togoether with a hand-drawn color terrain-facade to actually draw.
You can catch air if you try to. Go fast over a hill top, and things look pretty hollywood…
Notice enemies in the background, left of the parachute mines. They can use the foreground as well…
Its not all rolling hills. Heres some temple ruins leading up to the stage boss fight. As you can see by the health indicator at bottom left, I’m not doing too good. Especially with a score of 525… Each respawn costs 1000 points.
All kinds of enemies. Tunneling missile launchers, automated walkers, tri-gun-turrets, suicide choppers, light assult vehicles, minelayers, attack helicopters, and more… Mid-boss and end-boss, And THESE guys:
Theres even reflective water, with splashes, and expanding rings
There is no ammo count, but under your health indicator is your temp. guage. Overheated weapons start a short cooldown. This turned out to be a great mechanic in my oppinion. Some degree of resource management.
Press down to plant the jeep. Here I’ve parked on the roof of a structure, awaiting the next wave…
Or press UP to jump… Tap for shorter jump, hold for longer jump. Theres the mid-boss, appearing in the background, top left corner. I refer to him as the goose. Hes a pretty neat fight once he strikes…
With a jumping jeep, there is no excuse for death by pit-fall.
Here a shot of the Helicopter… While it can ofcoarse move freely up and down, its weapon system is also a different experience; It shoots rockets straight ahead, and cannon rounds down at an angle:
The stage boss is lots of fun, with a few different behaviours, lots of weapons, and personal minions at his disposal.
Beating him, loops the demo… You dont get to see him here…
Whew!.. I’d love to hear some thoughts if any occur, all feed-back welcome.
-If anyone has any issues playing; (frame-rate issues, bugs, crashes, glitches, control problems)
I will respond and try to solve the issue…
One person has reported frame-rate issues. If more people report this, and my proposed solutions in the comments below do not fix them, I will consider releasing a copy with less demanding stuff going on… (The randomized clouds blowing by could be reduced in complexity for example, and some collision detection could be made less sensitive.)
-If you, or anyone you know, would be interested in supplying assets for this free game / teaming up to make something fun, just let me know… graphics, sounds, music… Enemies, effects, upgrades, backgrounds, terrains, whole levels if you want…
UPDATED Download :
HERE
), or maybe made like Thanatos (Amstrad) or Walker (Amiga) style
), more holes to jump over, especially on water, it may be like Army Moves second part (small “islands” like platform across a water area), good luck.