WhenAliensAttack

This is a alien shooter type game for the oculus platform, originally designed for the Gear VR.

I thought I would create a virtual reality game and this is what I chose to make. I had played the Oculus VR concepts "360° Space Invaders" by Tomas Mariancik (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGIlrsz9i20) and "Retro Invaders VR" by Ben Librojo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoT9Dzav6V4) and was inspired by these games as well as the original space shooter but was frustrated that neither is playable on current VR platforms so I decided to make something myself in the Unity game engine and the Oculus Unity SDK.

I wanted to create the aliens with a flat pixel shape and have them break apart and litter the floor like "360° Space Invaders" as in this comment https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?t=2109#p27028. I also wanted to give my aliens a sinister look and I found it in the cover art from the book Communion for the aliens pixel eyes.

Plus a little Cthulhu for the alien appendages.

I also wanted to achieve a old B movie science fiction look to the game. The color scheme and title text from the movie "When Worlds Collide" movie posters seemed like a good choice for the colors and what the game title should look like.

The game is purposely devoid of much user interface, no score, no lives, etc. I didn't want the experience to be obscured or distracted by these things. Also the concept of lives and points really didn't seem to add anything to the experience either so I left them out on purpose. Not sure everyone will agree with my decision but I think it is something to think about applying to other virtual reality games. You can still lose the game however if you let the aliens get to close to the bottom and the game has a prize at the end so in this sense it is still a full game.

The game is made for the GearVR but the PC version also works well except for the cables getting tangled up when you spin around in your chair. I may port to other VR platforms if I get a chance. It doesn't really work well on a non-virtual reality system though.

Please let me know what you think.

You can reset the view with the X button and move around a little bit with the B button. I also implement some rudimentary controls with the touch-pad on the side of the GearVR but it really doesn't seem to work that well but at least you can try the game out if you don't have a game-pad handy.

The game makes use of creative commons licensed music from Clearside. Outer-space images and models were created with Blender, Space Engine and Spacescape. Moon terrain courtesy of Black Sun. Sound effects generated with Bfxr. Special thanks to Ben Tristem, Brice Fernandes & Michael Bridges for their Blender and Unity courses on Udemy. The Laser Defender class section from the Unity course was very useful in making this demo. The title was created using the free font Green Fuz from Larabie Fonts.

This game is not licensed by Taito or publisher Square Enix, gameplay mechanics are not copyrightable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_clone

Links

https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?t=2109

http://www.frooxius.com/

https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?t=3996

http://www.vr-gameplay.com/

http://unity3d.com/

https://developer.oculus.com/downloads/game-engines/

http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/wearables/gear-vr/

https://www.google.com/get/cardboard/

http://www.htcvive.com/

http://opengameart.org/users/clearside

http://blender.org/

http://en.spaceengine.org/

http://alexcpeterson.com/spacescape/

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/landscapes/moon-landscape-35818

http://blacksun.doodlekit.com/home

http://www.bfxr.net/

http://www.bentristem.com/

http://fractallambda.com/

http://www.embraceitnottingham.co.uk/

https://www.udemy.com/blendertutorial/

https://www.udemy.com/unitycourse

https://www.udemy.com/

http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Green-Fuz

http://www.larabiefonts.com/

http://www.taito.com/

http://na.square-enix.com/us/home

http://na.square-enix.com/us/documents/licensing