L.A.W.L.E.S.S.

Type: PC game
Made with: Java, some graphical libraries
Available: Executable JAR file (.zip, 14,3 Mb)

L.A.W.L.E.S.S. is a classic shoot-em-up in the spirit of Raptor: Call of the Shadows that I loved in my formative years. Because the game was made as the final project of our freshman programming course in 2008, I had to write the game engine from ground up with Java. This meant that most of my Christmas holidays was spent figuring out how animations and hit collisions are made, and the game design only of secondary concern and it only has one proper level. I also drew the models with MS Paint and used sound effects from old games that would fit the atmosphere.

In the end, I'm still quite happy that I was able to really make something out of scratch. I also learned a lot about the technical foundations of video game development even though programming wasn't something if focused on in my studies.

In the game, you control a single red ship using the arrow keys and fire projectiles using the space bar. In a level enemies of two types (easy blue ships and hard purple ships) can spawn from any direction with any speed, although they will all fire downwards. Projectiles will not hit each other but all other collisions will result in a damage point. The player  receives points for each kill in the level and is able to record their final score upon completing the level. 

Because the projectiles are quite large and slow, the game ended up resembling a bullet hell game, just with a lot less polish and quite bad feel of control. Because of the projectiles and the controls being what they are, the level is quite easy to complete with minimal points but getting a high score means balancing getting a shot at an enemy ship with the considerable risks of getting blown away.