LGDC Accounce

I have wanted to participate in the Lisp Game Dev Competitions for a while now, but it always seemed that work made it an impossibility. Things are no different this time around, in fact I am probably busier, but I figure that if I want it to happen I am just going to have to make the time.  Without further ado, I announce my entry into the October LGDC.

1 Asteroid Jumper

Due to the proximity of Halloween, it seems like a good idea to make a Halloween inspired game, a real fright fest.  I, however, have not followed that route at all.  My idea for a game involves hoping from asteroid to asteroid either battling or racing opponents.  This is an action game where the arena of play is constantly in flux; asteroids shift, collide, and break apart due to the actions of the players.

  This will be a 2D game where the basic gameplay will be running around the perimeter of asteroids and jumping from asteroid to asteroid.  I don't want this to be a shooter, per se.  I want something that mixes together the feel of Asteroids, Worms, an overhead view game, and a side scroller.

1.1 Weapons, etc

The items or weapons that will be available is really unclear at this time.  In my imagination, I think a few things that might be fun to have: grappling hooks, jet packs, shields, explosives, guns, and bouncing projectiles.

1.2 The Asteroids

The asteroids will have real physics.  They will have momentum (linear and rotational).  When they collide they will transfer that momentum between each other.

  I might want to include fault lines in the asteroids.  These cracks will define how the asteroid will prefer to fracture.

1.3 Technical Stuff

Okay, here's the plan: Since I am very familiar and fond of Common Lisp, I will be using it.  I always aim for cross implementation code, but for the time I will be developing for SBCL.  I am going to use CL-OpenGL for the graphics and the Squirl implementation of Chipmunk for physics and collision detection.  In my experience, CL-OpenGL works most places and Squirl works with SBCL and CLisp, but has issues elsewhere.  This is the route of least resistance as it will involve modifying the demos contained in the Squirl package.

  I am still unsure how to get sound effects and/or music into my Lisp programs other than spawning a shell process to play an audio file.  I hope to look into OpenAL for sound as it should be cross platform.

  A goal is to have this be multi-player, particularly over TCP, but time is short and I have never done this, so I'm not sure I will be able to accomplish this.  If I do attempt this I would try to use ZeroMQ, which seems to make this easy to do.

  If you are asking yourself, why not use Lispbuilder, well I have always had trouble getting it up and running.