Deathchase Clone
Deathchase
9 - Accelerate
8 - Brake
1 - Turn Left
0 - Turn Right
Space - Shoot
Try and avoid the trees and shoot down the two enemy motorbike riders. You must be close enough that your range indicator blinks in order to hit them. Earn $ (score) by driving and get $1000 every time you defeat an enemy. Earn an extra $2000 or $3500 for shooting down the tank or the helicopter. Every other level is a night patrol, and each consecutive day adds more trees to avoid.
How high of a score can you get?
This project was created over a 1-week period. The recreation features textures based on the original Deathchase(1983), but created by Jordan Grayson. Programming written by Jordan Grayson. Font created by and licensed from Ray Larabie.
Comments
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Hi Jordan :3 This clone is really beautiful, the controls feel nice and are well placed, the animations move smoothly and the acceleration feels real and runs smoothly. The difficulty of the game feels relatively balanced, however the projectile for the shooting felt a bit delayed in some cases, especially when I was right behind an enemy. Overall this is a very well done clone and I enjoyed playing it!
I really love the way the bikers move, it's so smooth and it feels like they have real momentum and acceleration to them. A lot of the time it looks like the missiles come out of different spots to either side of the player, and it also seems like the hit detection is a little inconsistent. Sometimes I fire a missile and it completely goes through one of the enemies. The speed and turning of the player character is really nice, though!
Hey Jordan! First off, great work with this clone! It felt really nice to play and I could easily see myself playing this again and again to get through more of the days. Another thing I think you nailed is the spacing and amount of trees. There are enough for it to feel challenging but not overwhelming and impossible to weave through. Additionally, despite the bullets not always originating from the same point on the bike, I felt like if someone was skilled enough, it might not matter. If I had to point out an issue I had, it would be that occasionally I would hit a tree I felt was out of my way, or dodge one that I felt I hit, though this mainly happened at the higher speeds.
Really love it when the bikers pass through trees, shadow is casted on them. The change of the look of the tree when closed up is also a very nice detail. And instead of only having the first stage it is infinite! I should've done the same:> Apart from how great the clone is, I guess I need to be picky... The helicopter's movement is kind of weird, and the score($) in the original game only increases when there are enemies insight. Anyway, such a great clone!
Hey Jordan! This game feels real smooth, and I think it feels pretty good because of that. The trees as well are very faithful to the original, and the way they scale up to the final sprite at the end is really smooth as well. I would say though that there is a weird bug regarding the bullets. When I'm moving side to side, they appear to be originating from some weird point in space. Additionally, the bullets are very hard to see, and it would be nice to have some of the clarity that the original game offered. I do think the tree collisions are also a bit off, because there are times where I die when there is no tree in front of me. Overall, great job though! I wish I was good enough to get past the second night patrol.
Hi Jordan! This feels really smooth to play, like a better feeling, modern version of the original. The way the trees work and the rest of the art all feels super true to the original vibe of the game.
The one thing I would say is that sometimes the projectile shoots from pretty far off to the side instead of from the center where the bike is. It can make it impossible to hit stuff that's far away, especially since the projectile is small. Also the collisions with trees feel almost a little bit too forgiving? I felt like there were times I was certain I was going to hit one of the trees and then I’d kinda glance off of it, but maybe that’s only really relevant when you’re not going super fast. Great work!
This clone looks amazing Jordan!! You did a great job with the art in this game; I love the way the trees slowly grow in size as they get closer to the player. That definitely adds a layer of depth that feels really good to play. If I were to give a critique though, I would say it was confusing for me to tell where the bullets were coming from while I was shooting. Sometimes it would shoot from the middle of the bike, but sometimes it would should from the sides of the bike. I get this is probably the way you made the bullets curve, but sometimes my bullets would curve a lot from the softest keypress of slightly steering. Overall though, very gamer
Loving this clone! The movement really feels great and I like the extra emphasis place on accuracy for the shooting. I also want to compliment the trees, as I found it often transitioning between high density forests and low density fields, which made it feel like I was genuinely moving through space. The transitions between day and night are wonderful too. I do think your speed increases a little too fast with too high a cap, as it never took too long to catch up to the enemy bikers (though forgive me if the original had a similar issue). I also had some framerate issues especially when first starting a round. But overall this clone feels fully developed and faithful while still putting neat emphasises and spins on different parts. Great job!
Hey thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed the movement, and trees, they are probably what I am most proud of in this clone. I appreciate the feedback about the movement, I had some trouble tuning it because I tied it to the size of the enemy bikers as well, but I think it could definitely use a little more fiddling with the numbers to get a good size + a slightly lower speed ramp up and cap. I have some frame rate issues as well when I run it locally but not on WebGL, so thank you for pointing that out to me. Thank you overall for your comment! I am glad you enjoyed the clone.
Hey Jordan! This is an amazing clone. While the core gameplay stays the same, there are some major upgrades in many departments. I love the change to holding for acceleration/braking. It adds a bit more depth as you need to start braking much earlier to avoid obstacles than in the original, where your speed would fall instantly. I think the shadows are a brilliant touch. The difficulty scaling in terms of the amount of trees over time is well improved over the original. Really good stuff.
The only gripe I have with this clone is the shooting. It feels a bit inconsistent. While the choice to not have shots fully auto-target enemies is not a bad decision, I really struggled to understand where my shots would go. Sometimes while turning, shots only went at a slight angle, while other times they would go so far to the side that there was no way that it would ever hit an enemy on screen. It ultimately led to some frustrating moments where the enemy was in front of me, and I thought I had a shot, but it would miss, and I would have to spend a fair amount of time to get into a position where I could make another shot (bc the later levels are v precarious)
Still an amazing clone, you did such a good job!
Hi Miles! Thank you for your comment and your kind words about the acceleration and obstacle instantiation, I am really proud of them. I tried to go with what felt ‘right’ in terms of scaling the number of trees, so it’s great to hear that you enjoyed where it ended up on that front.
I totally understand what you’re saying with the shooting mechanics. I appreciate hearing about your experience with it and I’m sorry for the frustration. The shooting was the part of this clone I struggled with the most and I think your experience perfectly shows the definite room for improvement there. If I go back to this project, this is probably where I’ll start.
Thanks for playing!