My First Game (Or...Prototype of a Game)

The splash screen for my game, "Monsters!"

Hello, Barrel-Riders.  I've got something fun for you today.  A while back, I created my first video game ever using Visual Basic in Visual Studio.  Eh, well, a prototype of a game.  It's fully functional, yes, but it's not the most polished product, and it's lacking some sound effects and basic animation.  I'm still pretty proud of it, though.  Allow me to give a quick explanation of the premise:  imagine you were playing a turn-based battle game, similar to Pokemon, but the enemies were infinite, and the aesthetic was something out of a Monty Python animation.  Yep.  That's it.  It's a simple premise, but when I first came up with this idea, I knew immediately that there were a number of ways I could take it and many things I could add to it.

When players first load up the game, they're greeted by the splash screen above along with a progress bar.  After the game has finished loading (which takes little to no time at all, typically), players are greeted by a character selection screen.

Main/Character selection screen

The characters available to choose from are King Richard the Lionheart, William Wallace, and Alexander the Great.  There's a secret fourth character, but we'll get to that later.
Players are then greeted with the main game screen:

Main game screen

Players will rack up points (one for each monster they defeat) until the game ends, which occurs when the player’s health reaches 0.  The player starts with 1000 health points and after the first monster is defeated (which starts with 100 health), another monster appears and must be defeated.  The monster health increases by 25 points for every 5 monsters defeated, up to 300. 

The player can inflict damage using the “Fight” button and certain items in their inventory, accessible with the “Items” button.  The “Fight” button reveals four new buttons, three of which give the player the ability to attack the monster and one gives the player the ability to return to the previous menu.  For ease of access/use, help info, the main menu button, and an exit button are accessible within the “Menu” button. 

The help menu

The last button in the main game form is an “end game” button in the bottom right.  The player’s current score is displayed in the top left.  Every time the player attacks, the monster attacks back, reducing the player’s health little by little until it reaches 0 and the game ends.  The player has just 5 health potions in their inventory which will heal up to 150 points of health each.  After the game ends, the player is given their final score and is given the option to play again with their current character, return to the main menu, or exit the game. 

The "game over" screen

Here's a secret for anyone wanting to try the game:

Where to double-click to access cheat code entry

At the character selection screen, as shown above, double click in the indicated area until a bar appears that says "CHEAT!"  Here, you can type in whatever cheat codes you wish to use (including one to access a secret character, as mentioned before).  I'm not gonna tell you where to find those though.  You'll have to look for them on your own ;)

Some code for the game.  The middle sub-procedure occurs when a player clicks on the "Items" button.

All-in-all, I'm pretty satisfied with this project.  I had originally planned to use sequential access files to create some kind of leaderboard system, but I couldn’t quite figure out all of the details, such as putting the scores in order of highest to lowest or making sure that the file only contained the 10 most recent scores.  Perhaps if I ever remade this game, I could finally figure out how to do that, as well as create more unlockable characters and perhaps even challenges and alternate modes, etc.  Making this thing was super fun and a great experience.  I'm sure I'll look back sometime in the future and realize that this was super basic, but for now, I'm left feeling inspired and ready to take on the next project.


For anyone that tries out this game, thank you for playing.  I hope you enjoy it :)
 

>>>CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MY GAME!!!<<<
^Just a note:  it's a simple, small executable file.  Works great on PCs, but does NOT work on Macs.  Sorry :(  Let me know in the comments below if there are issues.

~ Danny (DarylOnABarrel)