Build a Neon Asteroids Shoot-’Em-Up From Scratch
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Build a Neon Asteroids Shoot-’Em-Up From Scratch

on Sep 24th 2012 with 8 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Experience Level: Beginner
  • Platform Used: GameSalad
  • Estimated Completion Time: 90 minutes
Download Source Files

In this screencast tutorial, I’ll take you through the process of building an entire Asteroids game, from scratch, using the free GameSalad Creator tool. No previous programming or game development experience is required, and you can follow along whether you’re on Windows or OS X!

Play the Game

You can also play this game on the GameSalad Arcade.

Use the arrow keys to manoeuvre your ship, and the space bar to fire bullets. Destroy all of the asteroids to win – but watch out for the UFO!

Download GameSalad Creator

GameSalad Creator is a tool for creating games without needing to write any code. The free version allows you to develop games for the web (as seen above) and for Mac – and even for the iPhone App Store, if you have an iOS Developer account.

There’s also a paid version, which lets you export your games for Android, add iAds and in-app purchases, tweet players’ scores to Twitter, and more. For this tutorial, all you need is the free version.

Download the free version here. It only requires an email address and confirmation that you are over 13, and is available for Mac OS X Lion (and above), Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

Watch the Screencast



Watch in full screen at 720p (use the Cog icon) for best quality. Don’t like streaming? Download the m4v.

Download the source file zip for this tutorial – it contains the graphic files, image files, and final project files for the game.

What’s Next?

Congratulations on completing your game! Here are some ideas for how to take it further:

  • Continue the game at a higher difficulty level after the player destroys all the asteroids.
  • Add a “hyperspace” button to jump the ship out of danger (that is, teleport it to a safe position on the screen).
  • Add special power-ups: these might improve your firing rate, or add a shield to your ship.
  • Create a better interface – the one we have now is functional, but pretty basic.

Thanks for reading! If you do create your own version of this game, please share a link in the comments below – I’d love to see it.

 
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Jamie Cross is a graphic designer and game development enthusiast. I'm currently working on a full blown platform style game using Gamesalad. I'm active on the Gamesalad forums under the screen name jamie_c and run a blog about all things creative at www.jamie-cross.net.  

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  • Eric

    Nice tut.

    One suggestion, because you have a large screen and the details are hard to see depending on the playback screen: it would be helpful if you could actually describe what your typing and in what field. For example, for particles, “I’m putting X in the size field, and selecting Y from the drop down. This will la, la, la. And I want the particles to blah, blah, so I’ll put Z in the Foo field and …” etc.

    It would be very helpful.

    Thank you for the tut.

    • http://gamedev.tutsplus.com Michael James Williams

      Good call – thanks Eric! We’ll bear that in mind for future screencasts.

  • Ross

    Great tutorial, just finished it. I agree with Eric, that some areas could do with a bit more explanation of why its that way. As it made think ‘monkey see monkey do’.

    Other than that. Look forward to your next tutorial video.

  • Jen

    Had to convert all the audios, the .aiff audios weren’t accepted.

    • Jamie Cross
      Author

      Hi Jenn,

      That’s interesting. Using the Macintosh version of Gamesalad, I’m able to drag the .aiff files right into the editor no problem. Were you using the Macintosh or Windows version? It’s certainly possible that the Windows version supports different file formats than the Mac version.

  • pbruna

    Hi, thanks for this great screencast.
    By the way i heart on the video your paper notes. Will you share it?

    • Jamie Cross
      Author

      Hi pbruna,

      I did print a script of sorts to use, it’s really just prints of the various behaviors from the game. If you’re interested I could save it as a pdf file and make it available to you. There are no specific instructions as such, just screen grabs of all the behaviors for reference as I filmed the tutorial. Let me know if you’d like a copy.

  • Bilzo

    Hey Jamie quick question, the project file and the art am I allowed I use them in apps that will be published on the appstore?