Linux Voice Introduction

Article from Issue 244/2021

This month in Linux Voice.

Those of us who are old enough to recall sitting in a 1980s basement and playing with a friend's Atari set will fondly remember the iconic Space Invaders – a simple yet captivating game that allows you to experience saving the Earth by shooting a virtual laser at virtual aliens. (Some of us – yes, we're still around – might even remember the original Space Invaders, an arcade game that offered a similar experience in barrooms and pinball arcades in the late 70s.) The cool thing about Space Invaders was that it was simple and unadorned, yet it had all the elements for a successful game, and other games have been building upon its steady foundation ever since.

This month, Paul Brown provides a complete tutorial showing all the steps for creating a shooter game that captures the spirit of Space Invaders using the versatile and powerful Godot game engine. We'll give you the basics, and once you are familiar with Godot, you too can build upon the steady foundation by adding your own scenes, features, extensions, and evermore-evil aliens.