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@scottschiller scottschiller released this 03 May 15:40
· 2370 commits to master since this release
V2.0.20230501
a16bab1

Armor Alley: Remastered

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 A R M O R  A L L E Y :: R E M A S T E R E D

A browser-based interpretation of the Macintosh + MS-DOS releases of Armor Alley.

Copyright (c) 2013, Scott Schiller

https://www.schillmania.com/armor-alley/

Code provided under the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) License

Original game Copyright (C) 1989 - 1991 Information Access Technologies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armor_alley

Quick links

Changelog / Revision History

V2.0.20230501: 10th Anniversary "Remastered" Edition

Screenshot: Armor Alley, 2023 update, running in a full-screen browser tab. Game menu, Helicopter, battlefield and ground units are displayed.
Previous release: V1.6.20220201. Original release: V1.0.20131031.

Video overview

New features

  • Mobile / touch screen support. Updated UX / UI, better playability and feature parity vs. desktop. Portrait is playable, but landscape is preferable on smaller screens.

  • Network multiplayer, like the original game. PvP, or co-op. Can be played with or against CPU players, as well.

  • 22 game levels. 10 original game "campaign" battles, plus 12 levels designed for network games.

  • Level editor. Create or modify existing levels. Data stored in URL at present - terrible, I know. Also compatible with network games.

  • Optional "Virtual Stupidity" theme pack. 🎸🤘

Performance improvements

• Reduced CPU load, in general, across the board between JavaScript execution, layout, and paint / compositing.

• Game Loop: Adjustments to target 30FPS on 120 Hz monitors.

• Collision "zones", greatly reducing object comparison work and function calls. 20,000 collision checks per second, down to 500 or less. https://twitter.com/schill/status/1627725917345955840

• DOM node pool / recycling: poolBoy.js - for things like gunfire and smoke. Less paint / repaint, more GPU compositing. https://twitter.com/schill/status/1628833430988554240

• Reduced variable / object creation in game loop.

• Battlefield DOM node no longer being transformed for scroll; now, only on-screen sprites.

Sound

• Even more sound effects.

• Some sounds can use ±5% playback speed for a little variety.

• Sounds can now be heard "in the distance," to the left and right.

• "Virtual Stupidity": 500+ meticulously-picked samples.

UX / UI

• "Live Graveyard" feature: decorate the battlefield over time.

• "Remastered" 8-bit sprite assets from Armor Alley V1.1 for Macintosh. The original 1.0 and PC-DOS version had up to 4-bit colour.

• Nice home page logo, "scanned" from the combat handbook that came with the original boxed game.

• Network games use Windows 95's LIGHTS.EXE taskbar UI showing tx/rx traffic, very important. ;) https://twitter.com/schill/status/1636449071140605958

• Four types of stormy weather: rain, hail, snow, and one other that's a surprise.

• Radar jamming: New visual noise overlay.

• "Extra-fancy" bunker explosions, particles, burning, and smoke effects.

• Nicer bomb explosion on ground. Hat tip: "Dirt Explosion" by SrGrafo on DeviantArt - https://www.deviantart.com/srgrafo/art/Dirt-Explosion-774442026

• "DOMFetti" confetti explosions, colours based on the target being hit.

• Notifications: Verbiage for different actions, e.g., "your tank steamrolled an infantry", or gunfire "popped a balloon" etc.

Bug fixes

• Refactor of Traffic Control, so vehicles are less likely to get "stuck" waiting for one another.

• Helicopter bombs could be delayed after key press. They should now be consistent and fire on the next frame.

• Super Bunkers would sometimes stay yellow, even when friendly.

• Additional "arrow signs" on battlefield were missing from bases since 2013. Oops. ;)

• Parachute infantry (dropped from helicopter) no longer get a recycle (reaching end of battlefield) reward.

• Balloon respawning at top of screen: fixed.

• Allow balloons to be moving up or down at init, previously always downward.

• Fixed bomb spark / hidden / bottom-align logic.

• Tighten up inventory ordering / queueing, consistent spacing + avoiding overlapping between sprites.

Gameplay

Helicopters

• Only the local player's helicopter blinks on the radar; all others are solid, as in the original game.

• Desktop: double-click no longer toggles helicopter auto-rotate feature.

Smart Missiles

• Notify user when trying to fire a smart missile, but no eligible targets nearby.

• Smart missiles can now take damage, and plow through up to four infantry (ground units only) before dying.

• Smart Missile targeting refactor. Removed former "missile facing target" requirement. Prefer shortest distance, unless just above ground. Hat tip: Pythagoras. 😉 📐

• Smart Missiles now target your vertical offset, plus half your height.

• Smart Missiles now blink on launch, and take a moment (0.5 seconds) to arm themselves, and are not as dangerous (1 damage point) until then. This is implemented as the "Ramius frame count" (delay) - as inspired by "The Hunt For Red October." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgTc3cYaLdo&t=112s

• New feature: Smart Missile "decoy" ability, - about 1/3 of a second to see and retarget a newly-deployed parachute infantry when the initial target was the helicopter.

Gunfire

• Gunfire can now collide with gunfire.

• Turret gun firing rates have been reduced significantly for easy + hard levels.

• Gunfire can now ricochet off the roof of a Super Bunker.

• Desktop: Helicopter gunfire now stops when landing on, and cannot start while on a landing pad.

Bombs

• Bombs now "pass-thru" infantry, as opposed to dying 1:1.

• Bomb explosions on the ground can now take out larger groups of infantry.

• Bombs can be hit by gunfire in extreme mode.

Tanks

• Tanks have finally been given flamethrowsers (as in the original game,) which they use on infantry, engineers, super bunkers and end bunkers.

• Game preferences refactor. Volume control, UX/UI, and optional gameplay features.

• Enemy tanks fire every 11 frames in "hard" mode, 12 in "easy" (and tutorial), and 10 in "extreme." Previously, all were 10.

• Tanks now repair more incrementally, larger gains every 1 second.

Other

• Engineers start repairing bunkers (if enabled) at the doorway, "shielded" by bunker vs. previously standing outside.

• Landing pads can be "The Danger Zone" if enabled in prefs. This was inspired by the 2022 Top Gun movie release. See also: "The Girl From Ipanema, "I Got You Babe," "Mucha Muchacha," and more.

• Base explosions can now also damage units passing by.

• Bases can fire rubber chickens + bananas if "match missile type" enabled in prefs.

• "GOURANGA!" - inspired by the original Grand Theft Auto.

• When the battle is over, the losing team's units all contribute to the explosion party.

Technical

• Codebase migration to ES6 modules, patterns and syntax.

• SoundManager 2: hacked-together version of Web Audio API for playback, vs. HTML5.

• Refactoring of game type and objects system; e.g., tank -> TYPES.tank, and game.objects.tanks[] -> game.objects.tank[] so look-ups and interating by type are logical.

• game.objects.players now has local, remote, cpu etc., which point to helicopters. Previously, many assumptions were made about game.objects.helicopters[0] and [1].

• Network feature uses PeerJS (MIT license) for peer-to-peer communication via WebRTC.

Miscellaneous

• It turns out there are three types of cloud sprites in the original game, not two.

• 12 smoke frames in the original game too, vs. my 9.

• Nicer ASCII block-character logo.

• Updated favicon + related app / tile images.

Prior release notes

For history back to V1.0, see the README equivalent in aa.js.

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