The game is a top-down shooter with two classes of enemies, each of which has several parameters defining its combat abilities. Each round, the enemies that appear are mutations of those enemies that dealt the most damage to you on the previous round.
You can steer the direction of the enemies' evolution by taking more damage from the ones you like. It might not be easy to see that it's working, because of the game's difficulty. Therefore you can start a game in easy mode by pressing Ctrl-Alt-R when the game is paused. In this mode you can for example try to cause the enemies to become a particular colour.
The game has been found to run OK on a netbook with Ion graphics. It requires the .Net and XNA redistributables (the "installer" version of the game should be able to download them).
Sweet! The screenshots do NOT do this justice. At first I thought, "what does this have to do with evolution?" but then I saw the enemies evolving -- I didn't have to read the documentation to figure that out. Awesome music, too. Game is a bit hard.
I really loved the music! The game was a bit too hard for me to really see evolution in action; too much multitasking (steering in one direction and aiming in another).
That's an interesting and unique concept! Though many games use the same base idea (mutating the enemies and combining (kinda) them), I really liked how the trigger is you taking damage. =D
The only downside are the graphics... =X But the song was really good! =D
quill18: can you tell me what kind of CPU and graphics card you have?
In the off chance that this is something to do with the custom pixel shaders, can anyone for whom the original doesn't work try this: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/100794454/AstronomicalAffrayNoPS.zip . The only thing changed here is the removal of the pixel shaders. If you use this for voting please keep in mind that you aren't getting the full package re graphics & mood.
To everyone: thanks for your kind comments on the music and sound!
Quite fun, nice choice of music and sfx. Gameplay wasn't all too shabby either, but it didn't feel very natural. The movement would probably be nicer without any smoothing.
Either way, good work there, it's a pretty addicting game!
The normal mode is actually pretty hard, thanks for the Easy mode. I like the controls, the music was nice! Also the enemy feedback0based evolution is a great idea.
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The music and sounds in general are awesome! It's very funny too, great work dude! ;)
I'm really excited to give this a try too. I like that you're using actual natural selection to evolve your enemies.
The only downside are the graphics... =X
But the song was really good! =D
In the off chance that this is something to do with the custom pixel shaders, can anyone for whom the original doesn't work try this: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/100794454/AstronomicalAffrayNoPS.zip . The only thing changed here is the removal of the pixel shaders. If you use this for voting please keep in mind that you aren't getting the full package re graphics & mood.
To everyone: thanks for your kind comments on the music and sound!
Either way, good work there, it's a pretty addicting game!