Utilizing techniques found in the RPG Course and elsewhere, I have made a game-design mind-map for my new upcoming game, Highway Hunter. It is a vertical scrolling 2D shooter game reminiscent of Spy Hunter. It will be created utilizing the lessons taught for Laser Defender.
(edit: Having trouble uploading the image though. I’m sure the problem is on my end.)
Hey Anthony,
I will look forward to watching your progress on this one, assuming you share some updates, I used to love playing Spy Hunter on my old Atari back in the day… loved the music… 
Updated Mon Aug 27 2018 21:26
Music is a bit faster than I recall, but other than that… ahh… fond memories
A brief video update on my progress to Highway Hunter:
I have player controls, road detection, enemy spawning, shooting, health, and collisions.
Looking good Anthony - one of my favourite childhood games - I will look forward to be able to play your version
Enter the world of a lone crusader on a shadowy flight through a dangerous world that does not exist…
Highway Hunter
A topdown vertical scrolling shooter based on the classic arcade game Spy Hunter. Race down an endless highway shooting at cars and avoiding obstacles. You score points for destroying cars and for every second you can stay on the road. Try not to shoot the civilians.
WebGL build:
http://www.sharemygame.com/share/326a5337-60c3-4d79-ba98-82a4e878d3f2
This is fun to play Anthony, well done
I like that you added the cars having their wobble when you get close to them, I used to use that to push them into the obstacles on the side of the road in the original Spy Hunter, I’ve not been able to achieve that yet in yours.
What are you planning to add next to this? I recall things like puddles/oil slicks that would make you lose control of your car briefly, and of course the truck that you could drive into
I am focussing on web dev and courses for awhile so I don’t know when I’ll get around to the next version.
The most recent update to the game added civilian cars as a deterrent to holding down the fire button and just shooting all the time. However, the point cost is so prohibitive that I had to boost the point award for destroying enemies and lower their hitpoints to discourage ignoring weapons altogether. Since fuel consumption also gives more incentive to stay on-road, there will be fewer trees.
As further incentive along these lines, the next update will include a fuel meter that will deplete over time (and deplete faster if you are off-road). Running out of fuel will end the game. Destroyed enemies will drop fuel boosts.
Other potential “maybe in the future updates” are:
Sounds like you have some great features to implement Anthony, I can’t wait to see the next update, so I hope you make great progress with your web dev and courses and return to Highway Hunter soon
Here it is!
http://www.sharemygame.com/share/009ecd40-8472-46a3-b2d9-36237542637b
hehe, you couldn’t wait to add more could you 
This is really nice and certainly builds on the previous version. I didn’t experience the running out of fuel, but that was because I crashed quite frequently.
On a related note, are those red trucks able to be destroyed? Each time I have tried I crash into them, I’m assuming not?
The change of speeds based on the terrain the player is on is great, I don’t recall seeing the particles for “off-road” when I played it last time, but I may have been avoiding the grass where-as today I deliberately tried it out - its a really nice touch.
I don’t know if it’s too earlier to add a few wish list ideas, you obviously have a good view of the direction of your game, but I’ll throw them out there anyway, feel free to utterly ignore
vehicles - at the moment you can get a bit of a feel that these are “placed” as opposed to “moving”, sometimes they are positioned just above a block of grass for example. It might be nice if the cars had a bit of movement of their own, I recall in SpyHunter that some of the enemy cars would speed up and driving along the side of you for a bit.
If you added this, you could then have them moving at different speeds which, in the case of the blue cars, would provide even more challenging obstacles to avoid, assuming the player doesn’t want to shoot them.
collisions - I couldn’t quite work out why, but there were a couple of occasions where the enemy cars appeared to explode on their own, e.g. out of the visible play area and the explosion appeared. I wondered initially if it was perhaps because I had been firing and the bullets were going off the top of the visible area and just happened to hit an enemy, but then it occurred when I wasn’t shooting too. Could they be spawning on the same spot and destroying each other? I ruled out trees as when it occurred they were only on the road.
bumping - I love that the cars move to the side when you move towards them, I recall in SpyHunter you could bump cars and try to crash them into other objects, I’ve not managed to do this yet but I wondered if it was actually possible as the horizontal movement they make is out and then back in again.
It seemed a bit odd when my score went negative (yes I was that bad! 
), maybe it shouldn’t be able to go below zero, even if the cost exceeds the current score?
player movement - I may be recalling this wrongly, but couldn’t you move vertically as well in SpyHunter? This may aid the player to dodge obstacles, especially if you implemented the above (vehicle movement) etc.
Really enjoying see your game develop Anthony, the above are just a few thoughts I had whilst playing that I thought I’d share with you
Going back for another go now!
Many of those things are on my wishlist, too.
re: bumping
The AI does still feel very artificial and I’d like to improve that at some point. My idea wasn’t so much to bump the cars as to give the impression that they had drivers with survival instincts. It’s not that they go in and out, so much as they move away from the player and otherwise move away from the nearest obstacle. But currently they don’t feel as organic as I had hoped. But at least they do react.
I’ve decided to wait on improving the AI until I’ve gotten some more experience and maybe made a couple more games. AI programming is an interest of mine and I hope to get better with each game I make.
re: vehicles & movement
Having some enemies adjust their speed and stay on the screen awhile was in the original design goals, but I changed it to the current model so that it felt like the player was going really fast.
If I do implement something like that, I’ll probably test it out with a new enemy type instead of changing the behavior of the current enemies.
re: the red vans
The red vans are “armored”. While not technically indestructable, you won’t be able to destroy them with your machine guns. They still die when crashing into stuff. If I later add more weapons or powerups to the game, then it is likely you’ll be able to destroy the the armored vans with those.
re: collisions
Sometimes the enemies do spawn on top of each other and I have no idea why. There are systems in place that are supposed to prevent it. I think next time I’ll stick to traditional spawn points instead of the random scan-and-spawn method I went with.
Still, I haven’t regarded it as something that needs fixing because I was hoping that it would seem like two enemies just crashed into each other, which would give a more organic feel. Also, it makes the game randomly drop fuel on the road which was something I had been considering doing anyway. But yeah, that’s definitely something I could use feedback on: whether or not this felt like a spawning bug in a broken game or just an unusual event in a game with lots of hazardous movement.
re: scoring
I like the negative score. It was really the primary feedback mechanism that you shouldn’t shoot civilians and need to adjust your tactics. Most people won’t notice a drop in score, but I think the negative value helps. Now I’m thinking of having the scorebox flash red or something if you shoot a civilian, too.
re: player movement
I like the idea if adding some vertical movement for the player. I think I’ll do that. I got stuck in this idea of a “vertical shooter” early on and so in my early design work, I was thinking of it like a re-themed version of Laser Defender. Vertical movement never occured to me.
Next update:
The next update will focus on the UI menus. In addition to just cosmetic stuff, the menus will be changed a bit so you can just hit enter to start playing from the title screen or after you lose. Also, a major bug will be fixed where the game freezes after a restart. I may also look into boosting the enemy’s speed a bit so they don’t feel as stationary and adding some vertical movement for the player.
I’m glad you enjoy the game. And thank you for the great feedback and encouragement. It really means a lot!
Screw it. Next update improves everything!
I’m remaking the game from the ground up with a smarter tile generator, adjustable difficulty levels, and improved driving AI for the enemies.
Also this one’s going to be made with WebGL in mind. (I.e. no driving off the map!)
Web dev can wait until 2019 I guess.
Hi, @Rob.
You might be interested to see this. I found my long-lost “in-progress” but playable version of Highway Hunter 2. It’s the same game, but rebuilt from scratch with lots of little improvements. Some features are missing because the game was never finished.
But I think it’s still kind of fun. 
https://sharemygame.com/@AnthonyJ/highway-hunter-2-wip
( The original game is up on itch: https://anthony-j.itch.io/highway-hunter )