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Juan

New game: Alien Intruder, a single screen jump-and-shoot arcade platformer for MS/DOS and compatible.

In space no one can hear you scream, so use your blaster instead!

Info and free downloads: usebox.net/jjm/alien-intruder/

#dos#msdos#gamedev

Feel free to share screenshots of your highscore table! 👀

Also: merry Christmas / holidays / release day, for those who celebrate 🎉

Them: so you're making a DOS game in 2024? Isn't that too restricted?

Me:...

Made a quick update (version 1.1) after some feedback.

Because the respawn point changes, by not letting some time to scan the stage before the enemies move, there could be unfair deaths in some stages.

This version improves that. No other changes.

@reidrac Congrats again, Juan - can't wait to try it!

@reidrac I think you're posting to the wrong audience here. DOS is too modern for us 🤣

Looks great, I'll definitely give it a try

@reidrac awww that looks very very good. Also the combination with the handheld platform would've been a "you must be from the future, here is all the money, sir" back in the DOS days. 🥰

@pauljan the screen of this handheld looks really good, unlike any handheld from back in the day 😂

We were not ready back then!

@reidrac imagine having just bought the very first gameboy and then your mate would bring *this*. 😂

@pauljan hah, not even a GameBoy Advance gets close.

Actually, I had a previous model of this one from 2019 and the screen didn't look this good either!

@reidrac nice!!! Already googling it from the alt text on your vid 😁👍

@pauljan it can run anything 8-bit, DOS, MAME, just fine. PS1 as well, struggles a bit with some DreamCast and PSP titles, but it is amazing the quality and performance for less than £100.

@reidrac this was mentioned in Subnautica Below Zero!

@semitones @reidrac
Clearly Alterra doesn't have powerful enough hardware to support such advanced graphics, hence why they play the pen and paper version.

@reidrac looks / sounds / plays great on DOSBox core of Android RetroArch.

@reidrac you must get this question a lot, apologies: What device is this?

@console the model is RG35XX H. The same brand has different form factors (more GB shaped, for example), and is just perfect to run emulators.

@reidrac do you know if it supports USB-C power delivery (PD): Can you use an USB-C → USB-C cable to charge (like a laptop) or does it need an USB-A charger? (I'm trying to avoid non PD devices)

@console charges with USB C. I use the same fast charger as with my phone.

Not sure if that's what you mean 😅

@reidrac what’s the plug on the other side of the phone charging cable? A or C

@reidrac USB-A doesn't do any type of negotiation and simply charges with 2.5W/5V.

PD (power delivery) requires a chip in the device: When you charge with USB-C to USB-C and the charger, cable and end-device support PD they talk to each other and negotiate how much power there can be. Many cheap products from China however simply switched the micro-usb with an usb-c plug and didn't add the DP chip to save costs. Those don't charge at all with a modern power supply/charger. Hence the question.

@reidrac Almost all serious products support PD but since USB-C is mandatory in the EU, lots of sneaky companies just add the lesser version of the plug. It's annoying because there's no “stupid" (chip-less) charger in my household anymore. That's why I'm trying to avoid giving money to these types of companies.

@console may be you can find info in the manufacturer's website!

@reidrac Works fine in DOSbox/Ubuntu 24.04. Great fun so far :-)

@reidrac I'll try it out on one of my retro handhelds, I think I don't have used the dosbox party of it yet 🤣

@Sh41 I only had to enable the joystick for the game to ask for calibration, and then it plays like a handheld game.

@reidrac I'm be nitpicking that fire and jump get mapped to X and Y instead of A and B, but otherwise works perfectly

@Sh41 it is a DOS game, as you can imagine I don't control how your handheld maps the buttons 😂

I'm sure you can change that.

@reidrac I'm just surprised that the out of the box configuration uses those buttons

@Sh41 me too, actually. I wonder if it is the emulator or the defaults set by the handheld.

Is not a big deal though, I still love the device.

@reidrac You know, it always warms my heart to see people making games for retro platforms like MS/DOS (Or how i see sometimes even games for gameboy, fun times)

@reidrac Looks pretty good. What is the game's system requirements? Does it require a 386?

@marnanel written in C (and a tiny bit of ASM)

@reidrac Neat! Awesome seeing people developing for DOS still.

How do you think the game would handle running on real hardware 486 DX4 @ 100MHz? Would there be timer problems?

@aviancer it should play perfect!

@reidrac I've downloaded and tested it in DOSBox-X now. Great fun! Beautiful visuals and sounds! Starts very easy but gets tough when the guys appear that shoot on you. 🤣
Haven't figured out yet what to do about the blue and white guys...

@kolli thanks!

I assume those are the robots, that take more hits. They chase you when at the same level. The idea is to plan in advance to have enough space to shoot them the required times before they reach you.

Each enemy has a very specific behaviour. I know, is not easy!

@reidrac

Nice game. Thank you very much!

Played it on my MiSTress (newest ao486 core.). Had to rename the folder after unpacking (name was to long for MS DOS).

Game runs well on this configuration. I am not (yet?) good at it. Have to practice more.

@RockyBoulder hah, nice one. It could have been an Amiga game I think!

@reidrac finally tried it. It's very cool and deceptively simple. I like that dying resets the score but doesn't put you back to stage 1: I don't really have all the time I had 30 years ago to play.

One thing I'd change: it's much more challenging to finish the game without killing enemies, so I'd invert the bonus and give points for every enemy left alive rather than killed.

@Blackthorn interesting idea!

The rationale behind that bonus is that you don't need to kill all the enemies, certainly. Some of the enemy types don't even chase you, so they're easy to avoid. IMHO killing all the enemies vs the time limit is a bigger challenge (although it only affects the score).