What’s a Space-War movie or game without an established universe?
Even though SpaceWar was (and SpaceWar Blitz is going to be) a very simple game, it does have a neat backstory.
Premise
In the year 2999, man has all but mastered space travel. Hyperspace was child’s play, and stars never even seen today can be visited in the blink of an eye.
Yet with all these advancements, man had yet to encounter something that had always been assumed existed – life elsewhere.
All that changed with the discovery of Allur, an exotic element capable of generating immense levels of energy only found near black holes.
The element was named after a sector in space, Allur XIX, where it was first discovered. Though the element is quite abundant, the sector is extremely dangerous for its abundance of the aforementioned black holes, and the presence of a native species, the first ever encountered outside of Earth.
These Allurians are humanoid bipedal creatures. They are an intelligent species, capable of spacefare inasmuch as humans are at the time are. But other than this, not much else is known about these elusive beings, as they do not seem to respond to English or any other language.
The first encounter between Humans and Allurians ended in a massive loss for the Humans. Outmatched by the aliens’ Allur-powered crafts, the Humans knew they needed to adapt.
The first Human prototype that used the element was the AWC-111 Rocket Ship, nicknamed the Line Levitator for it’s shape and quickness, but wide-hitting capabilities. Indeed, it was built specifically for hit-and-run tactics, the only recourse the Humans had at the time.
The Line Levitator squadrons were successful in holding the Human territory, slowly pushing the enemy forces back before retreating to its safe haven. Or so the Humans thought. Unknown to them, the Allurians had secretly sneaked behind the Human frontline with a small but deadly armada of ships. They were headed to Earth, the Human home planet.
With the bulk of the Humans’ mightiest battle ships busy in engaging a token decoy squad, Earth was left at the hands of a young Major James Yahmutt. A career engineer and inventor before being forced into a commander position, Yahmutt was a brilliant tactician with a knack for finding the enemy’s weaknesses and punching through with all his might.
Left with only prototypes, he modified the Line Levitator’s Allur Wave cannon into a much more fearsome version, sacrificing speed (it took a long time to charge Yahmutt’s version) for immense power.
He also scrapped much of the ships at his disposal and repurposed its armor and shield generators into his own flagship. The added weight greatly slowed but hardened Yahmutt’s battle ship, and the first Allurcruiser was born.
Facing overwhelming odds and simply using accuracy, timing, and his super guns, Yahmutt successfully defended Earth, and for his heroism, was promoted directly to General, and was known to Humankind as its greatest living hero.
He and his squadron had little time to celebrate however, for his next assignment had been given – to breach the enemy’s defense and find the Allurian’s home world.
“Retaliation?” Yahmutt asked as he received his orders.
No one answered.
Ships
The original game had 5+ ships (I couldn’t recall the exact number). Each with its own pros and cons. For example, the Line Levitator was fast, agile, and hard to hit. Its attacks are weaker, but have less energy requirements. On Blitz where there is no Energy resource, this ship’s attacks will have shorter cooldowns than most.
You might have guessed from the name, but the Line Levitator was represented before by a single line (again, I only used direct draw-to-screen graphics, so the simpler the drawings are, the faster the game). This is another aspect of the game I’m very excited about, being able to reimagine the ships from the original (I can only remember 5, sadly), and add new ones as well.
Here’s a snippet of the ship lineup from the original I’m thinking of bringing back.
- Line Levitator – Again, it’s fast and agile with dodge and evasion maneuvers. However, it has weak armor and shields, as well as weak but rapid-firing attacks.
- The Allurcruiser – Equipped with the best in class armor and shielding, along with powerful lasers and the feared Allur Cannon. Its biggest and only downside is that it is also the slowest among all ships.
- Triangle Bomber – While it got its name from its shape (it was literally drawn as a simple triangle in the original game), the Triangle Bomber is also aptly named because of its 3-pronged approach to battle: Stealth, Bombs, and Shields. It was always approach the enemy in stealth, activate shields, and deploy bombs at close range.
- The Mirage (AKA Diamond Ship) – This Allurian vessel is the most commonly seen and is known only to names given to it by Humans – The Mirage or The Diamond Ship. It uses an unknown technology to create illusions that look so real, they can overwhelm and destroy ships by themselves.
There will be a minimum of 9 ships eventually for sure. In fact, three of them are already working in my current prototype (2 mentioned before plus a new one I might discuss in detail in the next few posts).
I will be posting again very soon to give an update on the development of the game itself.
Cheers!
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