This is a proof-of-concept I put together for a combination arcade space shooter and exploration/trading game. Travel around the solar system, mine meteors for valuable Starcore, and trade commodities; all to earn enough cash to purchase a gate pass to explore the galaxy. This was inspired by the PC game Freelancer with a little bit of SNES Star Fox, though the latter doesn't come through as much yet.
I'm likely moving development over to Godot for this one, hence considering it a release.
Current Features
- Explore the 8 planets of the Solar System (sorry, Pluto)
- Customize your ship's weapons loadout and modules to suit your playstyle
- Trade in 5 different goods to maximize your profits
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I've been trying out Pico-8 for a couple weeks now, mostly to prototype a couple game ideas, but got the idea in my head to try and emulate 2d sprite normal mapping for dynamic lighting. 24 hours later, this is the initial result.
About Normal Maps
Normal maps are traditionally used in 3D games to give texture to otherwise flat polygon faces, but more modern 2D and 2.5D games also make use of normal maps, usually for lighting effects. A normal map itself is just a image, usually laid out to match the base color (sometimes called albedo) map of the model/sprite, but for the normal map, the RGB values of each pixel correspond to the XYZ facing of that pixel, relative to the face of the polygon/sprite.
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