Target Acquired

What is Target Acquired?

Target Acquired was a top-scrolling space shooter I wrote with a number of friends and acquiantances back in high school (1995). We did everything from the ground up, writing our own tools, graphics drivers, key readers - everything.

That version of the game hasn't been runnable on any hardware anywhere since about 1999 or so.

This version, however, uses the Simple DirectMedia Layer and runs on everything. (Well, OK, so it's been tested on Windows 98/2k/XP so far, and on Linux, and on one OS 9 machine. More platforms will soon be listed here, with luck.

News

Update: 19 Jan 2008: A universal binary for OS X is now available.

Update: 24 Nov 2002: William "foobaz" MacKay built Target Acquired for Mac OS 9.

Update: 2 Sep 2002: Added a difficulty selector that lets you modify the speed of the game, and notes this on the high score list. The game should not be quite as insane as it was originally (or will be more so, should you so choose). I also fixed a subtle timing bug that made the easier difficulties unplayable.

Downloads

• Win32 Binary: TargetAcquired_0.1_win32.zip
• OS X Binary: Target_Acquired.dmg
• MacOS 9 Binary: TargetAcquired_0.1_macos9.sit
• Source tarball: TargetAcquired_0.1_src.tar.gz

Known issues

• There's no sound. Anyone with sound effect making utilities is welcome to create shots, missiles, lasers, and explosion sounds and contribute them to the cause. Background music for the levels, boss fights, text-scrolls, and various subsidiary screens would also be appreciated (in MOD, S3M, XM, or IT format, by choice).
• Dvorak keyboards don't seem to play properly with the game, though it isn't clear whether this is a problem with SDL, my use of it, or with the configuration on our Dvorak-users' system. I suspect I'm using the Unicode conversion wrong.
• The game is fragile about where files are located. It would be nice to make the game installable in some central location where everyone can run it and load the libraries and data, and where the high scores might be safely modified by everyone.

If you're getting reamed by the alien hordes and just want to watch the game go, type "rhubarb" at the main menu.

If you've got a bug report, a media contribution, or any comments regarding the Target Acquired SDL project, drop me a line.