Akira (demo)

Push ALT and ENTER for fullscreen. Arrows to move, space to shoot. To cancel sideways inertia push DOWN. Or wait for it to cancel itself.

Make sure to enter the number 1 (ONE) at the start for engine sounds. All sounds are on by default, except engine revving, which is off, but if you push 1 you should get some engine sounds when increasing/decreasing your throttle.

It’s taken me about a week in a my spare time, with a 6 month gap in the middle due to loss of interest. But I started it again last week and added one of the Clown gang. It’s little more than a tech demo, and I stole the music track from the Amiga game, but it kinda shows what I’d want it to be if I ever finished it. I want to add another Clown biker or two, and give each distinctive AI. The current one is stupid, and while he will try to evade your line of fire he doesn’t see the barricades and doesn’t actively attack you. If I can I’d also intend to add one of those flying vehicles from the film, since they wouldn’t be affected by the road speed.

The basic premise is: survive the XX kilometres to the stadium, in a Spyhunter style game, and then switch to a Space Invaders type game for the boss fight against Tetsuo. The second half hasn’t even been started yet, but I’m already growing bored of this project. So I guess this will have to suffice until I find more time/motivation.

If your fuel runs out it just resets. Eventually I’d intend for it to be Game Over, with the chance to pick up extra fuel as the game goes along (perhaps tied to the death of a biker). The idea would be you need to avoid obstacles and keep your fuel up. Your lazer gun is recharged via the bike engine (like in the film), so it burns up more fuel. Hitting anything bad drains fuel too (though if you hit a barricade at full speed you should be fine). The clown bikers swing green hockey sticks to attack you. The “km” bar on the right charts your progress to the (non-existent) stadium. Each time you shoot a Clown biker it marks your kill count on the right. Clowns can die on barricades.

Oh, an the reason the Kaneda sprite looks so ugly is I drew it first, about 6 months ago, and did the Clown biker today - obviously I was more artistically motivated. If I work on it some more I'll also try to use more sound files, since they're easy to add in QBasic. I found this site with sound files. For example I'd like to later have Kaneda saying his "just when my coil was reaching the green line" quote, to be used when the player presses ESC to finish the game, or after a Game Over.

FUN FACT: the game was made without any arrays. I have never been able to work out how to do them properly, so I don’t use them. Which is why there’s only one biker and two barricades and I will never be able to elevate myself above 1980s era game design. Have fun, and don’t complain about the music theft. This is a non-profit thing so I don’t really care.

Source code is included!