TIGSource: Battleships Forever

Battleships Forever

Xander — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:30:00 +0000

First off apologies for my recent absence, and by recent I mean for about the last month. I’ve moved into University for my second year and things are a little crazy. The good kinda of crazy. Science of Sleep kinda crazy.

To catch up I had a quick browse of the IGF Entries this time around, and came across a game I’d forgotten about for some time. Battleships Forever! A great space-based tactical RTS which borrows aesthetic influences from the classic boss-battler Warning Forever. Created by Sean “th15” Chan, it heavily features ship-to-ship combat, where design of each craft is incredibly intricate. Much like ‘Warning’, each ship is made of of individual pieces and weapons, which can be destroyed however you wish to provide yourself the best advantage in combat.

Battle is relatively straight forward mouse control, to move you click the ships and then the area you wish to travel, however holding it in-place there allows you to change your ships facing direction as you do so. Positioning is crucial to doing well at the game as the usage of deflectors, which render certain areas of the ship invulnerable, become your biggest defensive asset as well as your most common obstacle. Used well, it can defend a single ship with ease. Used damn well, and as illustrated above you can create a fleet that causes red-shirts to wish they were back in that Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment.

(Hit the extended for less front-page hogging text!)

There’s a number of other weapons available, including the Flux Projector which is an impenetrable forcefield drawn through mouse movements, as well as a host of 17 different ships all with their own load outs, and numerous game play types to sink your teeth into (Highly recommended is the campaign, at least to get used to controlling the ships. Though if you’ve played any RTS before you should have some idea). Though it’s still technically in the Beta phase, it’s a solid enough title to warrant some decent playtime, especially given the almost endless array of tactics you can develop on the fly to try to obliterate the enemy. The only real disappointment at moment is that it’s lacking any multi-player modes, and I’m not entirely sure when or even if they’re going to be implemented. Here’s hoping…

And yes, for you Fraxy fans there’s a built-in ship-editor! I’m a little sickly currently and sadly mucus is not a creative juice, but I’m sure you guys can come up with some truly devious contraptions, right? In anycase, Enjoy!

(Image courtesy of the IGF, as it was far more awesome than the one I had prepared)

Further Gaming; A nice, though less free 3D alternative is Threadspace: Hyperbol. It’s more focused on single tank-like ships battling it out, but it does feature 16-player multiplayer, and your ships are fairly customisable as far as weapon upgrades are concerned. Worth checking out the demo at least, available at the link above!

"Battleships Forever" by ADess

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 03:43:36 +0000

It’s very nice and all but i’m having tons of in-game errors with options to ignore, sometimes it’s work, sometimes crash… Too bad. Don’t have time to run it again and report theses errors but i will in near future.

"Battleships Forever" by Cube

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 22:58:30 +0000

Hey, thanks a bundle, Robps.

"Battleships Forever" by Melly

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 22:03:13 +0000

Remember trying to play this beast a while back. The complexity of it was baffling, so I quit at first, but I’ll probably try again.

"Battleships Forever" by th15

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:11:21 +0000

Yayyy! Thanks for the mention!

I’ll get another link up for the download immediately. You can download the game directly from my website at http://www.wyrdysm.com/battleshipsforever/BFFullInstallerv79g.exe now

For people having performance troubles, there’s a bunch of performance options in the options menu, just try turning stuff off till it runs smoothly.

Mischief Maker: Uhh, that’s an AI controlled formation in one of the missions, I used that screenshot because its pretty :) There is formation movement functionality, but that just makes the ships move at the same speed.

I guess I’ll go post in the feedback forum to discuss the gameplay.

Thanks for all the support guys!

"Battleships Forever" by Mischief Maker

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:46:21 +0000

Great potential, but I haven’t the faintest how on earth you would have the time to arrange your forces into a nice tight formation like the screenshot and not have it devolve into a total mess the first time you try moving it.

"Battleships Forever" by Javet

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:37:44 +0000

It’s too slow on my computer. I really want to play it. :(

"Battleships Forever" by Kairos

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:45:04 +0000

Support for vector graphics in GM is non-existent for practical use. But anyway, BF is loads of fun.

"Battleships Forever" by Zetetic Elench

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:24:31 +0000

Huh - I played the early versions of this on the GameMaker forums about a year ago. Really cool to see it getting some attention.

"Battleships Forever" by Peach

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:21:16 +0000

This game is a lot of fun, but I have a couple of niggling complaints about the graphics. First, I wish they had used vector graphics, so zooming in wouldn’t turn the ships all pixely. Also, I wish they hadn’t used realistic portraits in such an abstract game.

"Battleships Forever" by haowan

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:12:56 +0000

It was awesome back when I played it a couple of months ago. I really enjoyed it despite a couple of small niggles with the control system and UI.

I also really love that credit is given to Warning Forever in the credits.

"Battleships Forever" by Robps

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:58:25 +0000

There is a working link in their forums http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1

"Battleships Forever" by Carlz0r

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:01:24 +0000

Download link on the page appears to be broken… anyone got a working link?

"Battleships Forever" by DrDerekDoctors

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:46:01 +0000

Ooh, that looks like pure sex, that does. Grabbin’!

"Battleships Forever" by Cube

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:18:33 +0000

So, I’ve tried to download this game twice, it’s giving me a 404 right now, and 2 weeks ago it just wasn’t loading at all. I can still download the music pack though.

So, can anyone re-upload this or E-mail it to me? I really want to play it :D

"Battleships Forever" by Dominic White

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 11:43:52 +0000

Battleships Forever really is pure gold. I can only wish it the best of luck at IGF, and hope that it eventually becomes a retail game, with online multiplayer.

It’s such a simple concept, but it works so very well.

"Battleships Forever" by skaldicpoet9

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 11:08:57 +0000

Awesome! Battleships Forever rocks! I’ve been playing through the last couple of versions and I have to say that this is by far my favorite Game Maker game so far…

Best of luck at IGF this year :)