Starfire - Ares Assault v1.01 Released

[Sui]

Hi All,

I have released a new version of the game.

Following feedback, the difficulty has been significantly toned down particularly on Easy / Space Slug modes.

The next release will aim to fix performance problems on machines with certain video cards, in particular those with limited memory.

You can download the latest version from here: (for PC and Mac)
http://www.suisoft.co.uk/starfire/index.htm

(please refresh your browser to ensure you see the v1.01 download links)

I have also posted a new YouTube video showing a playthrough on Hard difficulty:


Enjoy and please pass on.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please get in touch.
I have added a poll, if you don't mind rating the difficulty.

Thanks.

[stabilizer]

This looks amazing! :O

[Sui]

Thanks!

Did you get a chance to play? What did you think to the difficulty?

Cheers,
Gary

[Tank]

The game looks cool, unfortunately I'm not able to run it through Wine. Any chance for a native Linux build, preferably for a 64-bits architecture?

[Sui]

A linux version is something I'm considering.

At the moment I have next to zero experience with Linux and the development tools. I'm planning on buying a new PC in a few months, so I can have a play around installing test operating systems on my old one.

Ubuntu seems pretty popular and Valve are targetting it with Steam. That's likely where I'll start.

Beforehand, I want to iron out the performance issues with Starfire and get to a final version. I think some of the code I have for Mac OSX support should work on Linux as well, as they're both UNIX based. SFML does most of the cross-platform work (brilliantly) but there are a few bits and pieces I've done myself that will need porting.

[Zeneus]

Hey there!
I must say that I am amazed by your game! really good graphics (although i think you can do much better!), nice gameplay, to me it doesn't lagg or anything.. the difficulty for me was in the middle of "Just right" and "Pretty Hard".. but that's just me
keep on your creations!
btw:: you should probably start developing on linux, they're the future now (and always were!) ..
and yea, about the valve thing you are right, i read it a couple of weeks ago and i got stunned!
i really think that this new investement they're after is going to get nothing else but winners
cheers and grats for your game! ~Zeneus

[Sui]

I must say that I am amazed by your game! really good graphics (although i think you can do much better!), nice gameplay, to me it doesn't lagg or anything.. the difficulty for me was in the middle of "Just right" and "Pretty Hard".. but that's just me
keep on your creations!
btw:: you should probably start developing on linux, they're the future now (and always were!) ..
and yea, about the valve thing you are right, i read it a couple of weeks ago and i got stunned!
i really think that this new investement they're after is going to get nothing else but winners
cheers and grats for your game! ~Zeneus

Thanks! Glad you like it.

The production values are much higher on this game than my previous effort.

Will be intesting to see what happens with Valve, Microsoft and Apple. Perhaps folks who only use their PC for web and gaming could be tempted over to Linux. It would be very difficult for me to move to Linux, as I use so many Windows-only applications. I would have to go through significant pain.