I’ve started a “2000s” mode for Space Mission: Survival. This will a twin-stick shooter mode, also known as a “shmup”. It’s in the early stages of design and development, so I am not sure when this will be release or what features it will contain.
In the meantime, I am also continuing with any bug fixes, or minor updates that will enhance the game. If you see anything that needs to be addressed, please let me know.
Currently, the game is still listed as “Name Your Price”, and that does include $0.00 so please give Space Mission: Survival a download and play. The price may change at some point, and I am considering a Steam Early Access release, but I want to get a shmup mode added before i do so.
Version 1.2.0 of Space Mission: Survival has just been released. This update adds the ability to run the game windowed mode, with or without a border, as well as the original full screen mode. There are also some updates and bug fixes I discovered while adding the window mode option. Let’s cover them here.
For the windowed mode option, you can now select between full screen and a variety of popular 16:9 and 16:10 resolutions up to the resolution of your monitor. You can also reposition the window to where you want, and the position and chosen resolution will be saved for future runs.
On to other improvements… I’ve improved the astronaut floating routines so that they will travel across the screen instead of potentially launching off an asteroid and exiting the screen right away. This makes it a bit more fair by giving you some extra time instead of watching them quickly die.
I noticed that the asteroids were drifting slightly after extended play, so I improved their movement. While doing so, I noticed that I was moving them in a way that is not recommended… oof! That is also fixed as well.
Finally, as I described in a previous post, I wanted to redo the menus, so I completely rewrote the UI screens to make them more modular and to improve their design.
Thanks for reading, thanks for following, and as always, I look forward to your comments and suggestions.
It’s been (almost) a week since the release of Space Mission: Survival, so it’s probably a good opportunity to review the past week, and discuss the next release.
The first several days were very exiting and there have been many visitors to this game’s page, with a good number of downloads. I like to thank everyone for visiting, downloading, and your support. Currently, Space Mission: Survival is sold as “Name Your Price”, and I do hope you consider contributing as it will help further development.
There are many features that I wish to add, but I believe the next release will add the option to run the game in a bordered and borderless window in multiple resolutions, as well as full screen. To be honest, I never considered running the game in a window, but after visiting some game development forums, I see that there are many people that like this option in their games, so I am currently working on this.
I am also looking at streamlining the menu structure. Right now, the menus are a bit overwhelming from a development perspective, and this will only get worse as new features and menu items are added. You might not see anything different when running the game, but I want to improve this.
Thank you to everyone who has visited my itch page, my website, and my Youtube channel. I am planning on a few videos, as well as a post-mortem, tech discussion, and perhaps the history of the development of the mobile and computer versions of this game. My goal is to make Space Mission: Survival accurately emulate the graphics and sounds of each decade, and I look forward to your comments and suggestions as well.
Announcing the release of Space Mission: Survival for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers! Space Mission: Survival is a “multi-retro” arcade shooter… protect yourself and your astronauts from alien attack.
Space Mission: Survival offers a variety of retro gaming styles. You can experience the classic 1970s Arcade, 1980s Computer, and 1950s Flipbook styles, and there are even more retro styles coming your way in the future!
Space Mission: Survival was originally released for mobile devices 10 years ago, and after many restarts, I am happy to announce that it is now available for PC, Mac, and Linux computers! I’ve also decided to release the mobile versions as free to play!
Since Space Mission: Survival ‘s mobile release in 2014, I’ve been working hard to bring an enhanced version for PC and Mac. We’re finally here, but there’s still a lot of work to do. I hope you’ll check out Space Mission: Survival, subscribe to our itch page, and check out our YouTube channel for more updates and development vlogs.
I also welcome your comments and suggestions, and I thank you for playing Space Mission: Survival!
Candlelight Software reaches its 30th anniversary in 2022! I guess it’s about time for a history lesson.
History
Songanizer For DOS
Thirty years ago, I started using the Candlelight Software name, and my first program, Songanizer, was released. Songanizer was a utility used to manage your physical music collection (albums, tapes, etc), and allowed you to cross-reference songs and artists across your entire collection. Songanizer was released as a shareware product and was uploaded to BBSs and online services such as CompuServe and AOL. Yeah, it’s that old.
In 1993 I also developed a “Pro” version of Songanizer for use at a local college radio station and I released a Windows version in 1994. Songanizer for Windows was more than just a port of the DOS version of Songanizer… while the main features and functionality remained, Songanizer for Windows took full advantage of the Microsoft Windows environment to give the user such features as multiple printer support, a report designer, and more.
I also started developing front-end applications for the MajorBBS and WorldLink BBS platform which were developed using Visual Basic for Windows. By the end of 1998, the BBS scene was coming to an end, and I started focusing on other areas.
Favorites Inspector
In 2002, I released Link Checker which is a utility used to manage your Internet Explorer favorites. Version 1.0 did what it said (checks Favorites to see if they are still live, not much more), but over the next several months, many features were added to enhance the product. Tons. Fast and furious. Link Checker was also renamed to Favorites Inspector around version 4.0 in 2003. The technical side of developing Favorites Inspector is interesting (to me at least), and that too may be a topic for another day.
I kept Favorites Inspector going for 10 years with lots of support, lots of features, lots of UI enhancements. In 2012, I decided that I wanted to give game development a try, and I released Favorites Inspector as a free download.
Games By Candlelight
I left desktop app development and turned to game development in 2012. In the past 10 years, I released games for iOS and Android platforms (you can see the list here… all are still available to download and play). My mobile games are developed with CoronaSDK (now called Solar2D), and I used that platform for close to 8 years.
During the time I was using CoronaSDK, I also wanted to give Unity a try. I wanted to try 3D game development, and CoronaSDK was going through some issues being bought and sold (and eventually Open Sourced). I rewrote a few of my games using Unity, and I also participated in 11 Ludum Dare game jams. Those games are available on itch.io for download or online play via browser.
Back to Apps
I started getting a bit frustrated with Unity. I kept starting and restarting the same games over and over, and I was running into issues while developing and updating my released games… seemed like it took longer to figure out how to fix problems upgrading libraries than releasing my games, so the long development times started to turn me off on game development a bit. I needed a break.
Around that time, I discovered Flutter and Dart for cross platform application development. I decided to rewrite my one CoronaSDK app, Back In The Day, using Flutter, and it was a great experience. I also like that I can write an app and release features as I go (unlike game development) and as of now, my focus is on Flutter development. I have a few ideas I want to try to release.
Conclusion
So, as of this writing, I am still supporting my existing mobile apps using Solar2D and Unity. I am also going to try developing a few new applications using Flutter.
I have not completely given up on game development. I have 2 games that I rewrote with Unity that are very close to release, but I am unsure if I will release them, or if I will restart them using Flutter. For game jams, 3D games, or game I want to write for Windows or Mac, I will go back to Unity.
Wow, it’s been almost a full year since my last blog post. Hard to believe, but there really hasn’t been too much information to publish this year.
While I enjoy game development, I also enjoy application development, and I have been gravitating to application development this past year. I spent time learning Flutter and Dart and rewrote Back In The Day using Flutter. I enjoy working with Flutter, and I do like developing apps, so I may spend some time here… I have a couple of enhancements planned for Back In The Day, as well as some new ideas for apps.
On the game development side, I worked on a re-write of Spell Them Out and started a re-write of Pumpkin Patch Match, both using Unity. Got very close to completion, but all that “extra” stuff to get the game published on mobile was just not fun and causing a lot of issues for me. Libraries for Ads (Admob), Game Services (iOS Game Center, Google Play), and In-App Purchases were always a nightmare to install, configure, or update, causing build errors and hours of time trying to figure out what went wrong. So, as of now, I have 2 games that are 90% complete… man, I spent a lot of time working on these games. I may revisit these again in the future.
Plans for 2022
The year 2022 marks my 30th year developing apps and games. My current plans are to continue to support my existing games as much as I can (lots of app store changes are making support for my 10 year old games a bit more difficult), develop some apps using Flutter, and perhaps release the games I rewrote with Unity (or perhaps redevelop using Flutter).
I am also considering creating a version of Space Mission: Survival for the PC platform… again. I’ve started a rewrite many, many times before and I don’t want to start and not finish again. The PC version would have some many enhancements, but it seems like I am the only one that likes this retro shooter, so I am a bit unsure I want to take this on.
Time to change web hosting providers! I guess I could have transferred my old site to this new site, but I decided to start from the beginning in order to clean up some of the pages and older posts.
I am going to combine both my Games By Candlelight site and long ignored Candlelight Software site into this one web site. This site will focus on all of my development projects. I am currently developing apps and games using a variety of languages and environments, and everything will be located here.
More detail on my 2022 plans, some new and useful articles, and some old favorites coming soon.
