6 months ago, I decided I wanted to create my own game (after seeing my brother create his cool "Bounci"). As a 90s kid, my immediate first thought was that it was to be inspired by classic 8-bit Nintendo TV games.
First though, I thought, it would be a great idea to start learning Godot 4, the open-source game engine I wanted to use, with something simple. Arkanoid came to mind, and within a week or two, I had a ball bouncing around and the "ark" catching it, and I was excited =)
So it wasn't supposed to be an Arkanoid-kinda game, but I just couldn't help myself. I added the bricks, and then thought it would be cool to have some irregular terrain to make things a little more unpredictable. And before I knew it, I had more ideas than I knew what to do with.
So that's how Retronoid was born - a game that will be like Arkanoid, but with game aspects from other classics like Pinball, Pac-Man, B-Wings & Space Invaders - and tips of the hat to many more =)
I'll assume you know Arkanoid (if not, a quick google should solve that ;P), so let me tell you how Retronoid is different.
First, the Ark slowly moves upward on the screen, revealing more blocks and obstacles. In the original, you could somewhat control the direction of the bounce depending on where the ball hit the ark - in Retronoid, you can rotate the ark to control the angle of the ark, so you can direct the ball's bounce.
Just like in the original, there are drops you can collect for different effects - the three I have so far are straight from the original: increase the size of the ark, gain guns for shooting, and extra balls to help out (the extra balls can be lost and you don't lose a 'life')
Other things I've added are moving obstacles, side-throughs and a score-multiplier that increases slowly, with every bounce of the gravisphere. And do those side panels in the screenshot above remind you of anything? =) I'll let you discover what happens if you hit all of them.
And then, what retro game would be complete without a Bonus section? =) Above you can see that, upon getting close to the portal (where you enter to finish the stage and go to the next one), you gain access to the bonus area. The dots are a little nod to pac-man - 5 points each! - multiplied of course by the score-multiplier which, by this time, if you haven't lost a sphere, should be quite high.
I'll end this here... I was going to show more screenshots of the other stages (of which there are 9 at the moment) but nah! That'd be spoiling too much -
If you'd like to play-test it, please let me know! All I need is to add your email to the play-tester list and then send you the link.
Please let me know what you think. I'm quite proud - I've done everything myself, including all the art, sounds and music (music with the help of A.I.) and really looking forward to seeing how people react to it.
Thanks a lot for reading!
Mandel
