L-Type - by Paul Lowe

L-Type is a side-scroller in the tradition of the old-school arcade games and console games from the late 80s up until the early 90s. L-Type is a game inspired by the game R-Type. The L in L-Type was originally intended to stand for "Linux", but since the game has been portable to multiple operating systems, and such, the "L" has been changed to represent "Laser".

Screenshot of L-Type

L-Type has the following features: Fully written in C++, with heavy use of inheritance Cross-platform recompilation to Windows XP/2000, Linux, MacOS X, Playstation 2, and X-Box Motion blur! Carefully designed object classes Complete object-oriented architecture Animation subsystem Collision detection Sprite manager Object/Child sprite encapsulation Supervisory and subordinate sprite subsystems Variable direction / velocity starfield Sinusoidal image distortion effects Synchronized Multi-Channel Sound effects Highly fitting music soundtrack Rendering frame-rate independent logic Support for alpha-blended, scaled, and color-key sprites TrueType font rendering Amateur 2D artwork Ability to take advantage of high performance graphics subsystems (hardware blitting)

The Object Inheritance Tree

System Architecture

Bring on the screenshots!

This is the loading dialog:

Here's the main menu (the word l-type is continuously distorted with a sinusoidal transform)

Enemy battlecruisers are not your friend. See how well they can target you? Notice the direction of turrets is self-adjusting.

Generally, space mines are considered a bad thing. :)

Oh yeah, the game does motion blur. Notice direction of star movement. :)

Everyone needs to take a break sometime!

Flying saucers don't like three-way laser balls!

Explosions make my day.

This shows the "terminal" object, which types out text with cool sound effects and scrolls text informing you of your mission.

Some general combat.

They're no match for the plasma cannon (charging)

That plasma ball can sure make some waves!