Time-Flyer

Time heals all wounds! Fly through time, evade when hurt to heal

A 2D arcade-style top-down space shooter

Made in Unity Engine 2019.3.13f1 personal

• Moving bodies are missiles and pawns

• Pawns are enemies and the player ship

• Enemies can fly solo (a flock of one) or group into a flock.

  • A flock has a leader and one or more support elements that follow the leader
  • A flock of one has a leader with no support
  • When a support element is hit, it breaks from the flock till it heals, and enters flee mode
  • When the leader is hit, if not already in flee mode, it enters flee mode

• Flocks are spawned in waves

  • A new wave begins when all flocks of the previous wave have been destroyed
  • When all waves have been destroyed, the player goes to the next time zone

• Enemy AI includes steering and flocking

  • support elements try to keep up with the flock while maintaining separation: flock support members repel each other (inverse square law) if too close, while trying to match the velocity of the center of mass and trying to maintain a constant distance from that center of mass.
  • The leader seeks the player target, attacks (fires missiles) when in range, using (linear) predictive targeting, then flees, and then seeks again
  • The support elements also attack when in range, using linear predictive targeting.
  • If the leader is destroyed, another flock member, if any remain, is immediately promoted to leader.
  • If the player is destroyed, the leader goes into wander mode
  • When a support element is hit, it breaks from the flock till it heals, and enters flee mode
  • When the leader is hit, if not already in flee mode, it enters flee mode
  • Enemy AI also includes collision avoidance from other moving bodies.

• On being hit, a pawn loses health.

  • The pawn regains health over time, unless it dies
    • thus the pawn must be shot several times quickly to kill it
  • Flames visually show the amount of damage
  • Enemy pawns flee when hit to give health time to restore

• Movement: WASD, and arrow keys for turning. Space bar to fire.

  • The ship remains centered and pointing up (relative to the camera), while it appears that everything else moves and rotates.
  • There are two backgrounds--one moves to show the movement of the player, the other is fixed and represents a parallaxed infinite-distance background.