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This past weekend, I put the finishing touches on my Invaders From Earth game. The game now features:

* 4 different levels of game play. Each is based in a different themed landscape.
* Almost 10 minutes of story and animations (even longer if you have an older video card!!!)
* 7 page in-game Help System
* Weather effects such as moving clouds and thunder/lightning!
* A Continue Game feature, so that you don't have to start over from the beginning if your game is over.

The latest version says "Version 1.02" on the loading screen. All prior versions didn't all these cool neat features.

Here is the website address:

http://www.scotttown.com/games/game3.html

Here are a couple of my favorite screen shots:

Intro Scene for Level 1


Here you can watch the Rovers drive through the walls you built with the Aliens. The goal is to catch as many Rovers you can with your walls.


The Earth Rovers are going into the Uber Cave.


When you lose the game, the Aliens are brainwashed into shopping at the Space Mall.


Has anybody tried it yet? I would love to hear some feedback.

ok i found a bug so i had to stop playing

when u click mall view it gets stuck there and u cant change back

When you click on Mall view, you will look at the mall.

If you try to click on any Rovers that have completed their run, their letters would be white, and you wouldn't be allowed to view them, so the camera won't move. Perhaps that is what was happening. Try click on TOP. That should always bring you back to the top view.

Remember, if its yellow, you can click on it. If it is white or becomes white, you cannot click on it.

I played it for about half an hour. It's got potential, here's a couple of things I would suggest...

You play the same scenario 4 times (or is it 5?). Chances are, you will have the same number of pieces for most of the turns, and nothing changes. You are doing exactly the same thing several times.

There is no skill involved in working out which way the trucks will go, it is entirely random. I wonder if you could suggest the trucks drive differently. The ones that drive in a more straight line carry less. Those that move in many different directions carry more. Then you can decide whether to take the safer option, but lose less equipment, or try to catch the harder ones, but get rewarded more for doing so.

Good Luck!

One more thing...some of the labels disappeared for me, I have a GeForce 2 card and Intel 1Ghz processor.

Downloading now. Will edit w/ feedback when it's finished and I've played it for a bit (given that it runs). Good job & good luck ...

Thanks for playing, BatVink!

Actually, you are not doing the same thing 4 times. Let me explain:

Yes, in each level there are 4 waves, but with rover that drives through your alien beams, your power up meter goes up. When it is full, you get more starting points on the next level.

Here's where the skill comes in. Let's take Level 3 as an example, which is one of the best levels in the game. To start out, you only get one yellow beam. This single yellow beam alone cannot do much damage to the 5 Rovers. After the first wave, the Mall may be already 35% built. That is bad, because if you multiply that by 4 (for the 4 waves), then that means that you will lose no matter what, because the mall will be 140% built after the 4th wave.

However, if you place the beam wisely, you will so the most damage the rovers. You may not earn a power up after the first wave, but your power meter should be completed by wave 2 (at which point the mall may be almost 70% built).

Then, after all the hard work, you get an extra beam. Now, you have 2 beams to place, and you must place them wisely as to stop the mall from being built. Remember, there is only 30% of the mall to go, and there are still 2 waves to go.

Now on wave, 3, you have 2 beams. Use them wisely, and you should come out of wave 3 with the mall almost built (about 95%), and the power up meter filled. It looks hopeless, because the mall is so close to completetion, but now you have 3 starting points.

You start the final wave with 3 starting points, which (if placed wisely), will drain all of the Rovers from their supplies, and the day has been saved! Level 3 is really a close call, and probably the hardest level in the game. And the coolest looking!

So, to summarize, if you don't plan wisely, you may not get the power meter filled up. If you don't do that, you won't get extra starting points, and you won't stop the mall from being built.

Did you get to level 3? What did you think of the acting scenes? What about the rain and thunder effects???

As soon as I press new game, I get an error: 'Could not load object at line 3186'.

Mouse, I am sorry to hear that. I looked up line 3186, and all it is doing is loading the first alien object. Here it is:

3186: load object "media\alien1.x", 21

Now how could it not load the object on your computer, but it did on other people's computer? That's a mystery.

I am really sorry that it didn't work on your computer. I really wanted your input, because I owe the game's clarity to you, because of your post about how to use a ",1" at the end of load image. That turned my game from a blurry mess to a clear game!

My game uses normal mode Windowed mode - no exclusive, no anything else, just normal mode. This may sound strange, but I found that I get similar messages like "cannot load object" if I bring up another program and then go back to my game. It's almost as if my DarkBasic program totally lost track of the file or something weird like that when it loses the focus. I truly can't explain it. All I can sugguest is maybe a reboot and then try again? The alien object really is there, and it should be able to load it.

on the website it says u can add ur own picture to the mall but when i try it just comes up with the original how do u do it in more detail.

Here's how to put in your own image:

1 - Make your custom image a Bitmap that is exactly 200 pixels wide and 100 pixels high. If it is any other dimensions, the program will not use your custom image, and it will use its own.

2 - Name the file "mall.bmp" and place it in the same directory as the game.

3 - Run the game.

How to start at a different level

Here is a cheat that I use to test different levels. By default, the game always starts at level 1, but here is how to make it start at level 2, 3 or 4.

1 - Make an empty text file called "level.txt" and put it in the same directory as the game.

2 - Open up the text file, and put in either the number 1, 2, 3 or 4.

3 - Close and save the file.

4 - Run the game. When the game starts, press New Game, and you will start out on the level you entered in the text file.

If you enter numbers bigger than 4, of course the game causes a run time error and it blows up.

If you haven't made it to level 3 yet, try this method out. Level 3 has the best effects and story intro scene.

And of course, with this technique, you can quicky jump to the last level (4) and see the game victory scene.