SpiffyPilot
SpiffyPilot

What is it?

Screen shot of game For my senior project, I am doing an interactive computer game. This game is graphics intensive, and is pretty impressive. You have to see it to believe it... (grin) I will be continually working on this project even after I turn it in (May 17, 1996) for grading.

SPilot is a multiplayer action game that can be played over an IPX network, or alone on a stand-alone computer. It is written for the PC, requiring a 486sx33 (The only reason that I'm getting 8 FPS in the picture to the right on my 486-33 is that it's running in a window...) or above for acceptable performance. (I recommend a 486DX2-66 or more though...) SPilot has a lot of fhysicks that it emulates, including forces (Gravity, thrusting) and momentum.

In SPilot, you control a ship that can jump, shoot, turn, and accelerate. So far, you can collect PowerUps, shoot bad guys, and stuff like that. It is sort of based on X-Pilot, except that it's for DOS and it is more graphically oriented. I do not intend this to be the "DOS X-Pilot". I want to take X-Pilot's good points and use them, but I also want to extend the idea to allow for more interesting situations. They will evolve seperately, and eventually be completely different.

Screen shot of graphics editor Included in the ZIP file are both a level editor and a graphics editor that I have written. Try your hand at drawing computer graphics and designing levels!

Why is it called SpiffyPilot?

Because I just happen to have a fondness of the word Spiffy!!! Give me a break! :) (I have been told that I use the words "Stuff", "Nifty", and "Spiffy" to often. That's just because I like those words, and I like to be slightly different. I also make up words. Do you have a problem with that!?!?! :)

What do I want from you???

Two things:

What's the current version?

The current version is V0.88 beta. So far, you cannot use it on a network, but I'm getting there. Since V0.86, I've enlarged the PowerUps so that they are easier to see and look better, added an engine boost powerup, implemented the spread fire and double fire PowerUps, added a Keyboard Remapping program (To change the keys used by SPilot.exe), added documentation, sped it up (a lot), made it display the FPS as you're playing it, and made the Help screen be in graphics mode (which looks nicer). It is an interesting and fast download. Try it out!

Click here to download it! (58k bytes)

Where's the source?

For a long time, I had no intentions of releasing the source for this game, but like everything else, things change. I decided that it would be best to release it... maybe someone can continue my work. I've included the source and the utilities, some sample maps, and archives of the old versions of the program along the way. This program is written in a mix of Turbo Pascal, with inline assembler... Have fun!

Click here to download it! (737k bytes)


Copyright © 1996-8 Chris Lattner
Last modified: Wednesday, 13-Sep-2000 12:10:56 PDT