Thank you for this. Had alot of fun during my childhood. Now this is just much better. Too bad my brother is skeptical of the website tho 😅 Hopefully you do have time to create more scenarios in future.
This remake started in 2013, it’s hard to believe it’s almost 10 years old. It’s been a lot of fun to tinker on. I based the easy mode on one of the first missions in the game, recreating the terrain and bunker layouts etc. Similarly for the other two modes. There are a few things I haven’t done like tank flamethrowers (which they fire illustratively only when clearing out bunkers, I think) and some other details. I think I got most of the core stuff, though. I set up my site 20 years ago and it’s all fun side projects. It doesn’t have HTTPS / SSL on it at present, so browsers might show an “insecure” note - it’s only that the connection is not encrypted. It’s OK here since there’s no secret info like credit card info being transferred, but I do need to get SSL set up at some point. 😅
You can grab the source of this on my GitHub, but it needs to be served over HTTP and not via file:// in the browser. I think there are some tips on this in the code. I’m working on more updates to this which I hope to have live soon, so stay tuned.
You are most welcome! I also played this on my Dad's computer, although it was "technically" the family computer - I probably spent the most time on it, and I definitely played a lot of Armor Alley back then. It was an 8088 IBM PC-compatible clone, which originally had an amber screen and later, I think, 4-bit if not 8-bit VGA colour. I know that by the time I was playing the DOS version of Armor Alley, it was in 16 colours.
@@scottschiller Mine was the Macintosh LC 630. I think the monitor had "thousands" of colors. So, 2 things missing from the game. The first was the "return" key bailed out 3 pilots from helicopter. That's how I used to take the end bunker 😀 Also, I seem to remember the z key being the way to drop bombs, is there any way to remap that? And lastly, the missiles are a bit too fast :-D I remember it being easier to dodge them. Not gonna lie, I really like the banana missle On a seperate note, is there any way you can do Power Pete? I know it's a bit more obscure than Armor Alley. I'm a React dev who has experience with WebGL - and I'm willing to help in any way. I just don't know where to get started
Thank you! As I understand, Armor Alley V1.0.1 (or 1.1?) on Mac added 8-bit colour - so I went back this year and referenced the 8-bit sprites from the 8-bit version. The differences are quite subtle, but they are there. You are correct in that Z was the original key for bombs, I will add that back in. I took a few liberties with controls, here and there. You are the first (IIRC) to ask about that one. ;) Likewise for the bail / escape key, I will review vs. the original. I know the enemy / CPU helicopter would sometimes drop up to three paratroopers if you fired a missile at it. My recollection is the human player only dropped the pilot, but I will go back and look at the Mac version to see what is does in different levels / difficulties. No plans for other games at present; I played Armor Alley on PC-DOS, originally.
I've just made "Z" the default for bombs, as in the original game. That change is now live on the site. "Ctrl" is still an option, but it isn't shown as the default in the UI. As a kid, I would remap it to Ctrl for some reason - maybe because my pinky finger reached the control key more easily or something!
I just discovered this on the web, I used to LOVE LOVE LOVE this playing this game along with my roomates from college with MAC SE's and appletalk network, thank you for this remake!!!
You are most welcome, and I'm glad you found and enjoyed this remake. "Y'know something that never gets old? Nostalgia." ;) I've continued work on this remake, and I'm rounding up a whole bunch of updates for a video I plan to make soon. The latest is always on the site itself, armor-alley.net. 10 years after I began this project and said I'd never do network multiplayer, I found myself with the time to take it on - and I got that out there earlier this year. Let me know if you try it out.
@@scottschillerI'm thinking of spinning up a few workstations just for this exclusively and try out the network play, will let you know how I fare out!
@AshWipe Most excellent. The network game should ideally be comparable to single-player mode, but let me know what you find. I haven’t had any notable bug reports, but I realize the network feature is a niche use case within a niche game. At the same time, I have had several people specifically mention fond memories of playing over the network - so I’m quite happy to say it’s finally an option!
Oh my, I loved that game back then and I had so much fun playing this now!!! Great Work!!! But I do have some issues that decrease the fun and I have to admit that I do not remember how it was in the original game: - the shrapnel is much too deadly - fuel runs out much too fast (I can barely reach the enemy base without not being able to make it back) and/or rearming is super slow - enemy copter is way too suicidal (always trying to kamikaze-hit my copter or it seems just to hover above one of my convoys, deliberatly waiting to be shot down to destroy half of my convoy with the sprapnel from his copter) - enemy copter is also way faster than the player's Again, can't remember how it was in the original, just some things I noticed.
Thanks for the feedback. I have been playing the original Mac game over the last week, going through all of the original campaigns and difficulties. There are a ton of details in the game, some of which I still don’t have a dozen years out. 😅 I will review the shrapnel, and maybe reduce its damage rate. It is aggressive in the original, but there may be less of it. I just slowed down the fuel burn rate recently, but will review again as I have been testing this. Flying from one end to the other does burn a fair bit. You should be able to hang out for a minute before getting the low warning, and at that point you can make it “home” if you start flying back immediately. Rearming missiles is probably slower than the original, and maybe also other munitions. I’ll try to time all these and compare vs. the original. I assumed the enemy chopper was always faster than the human player, but they may actually fly at the same speed. Need to confirm. The enemy chopper “AI” is rudimentary at best. The original game was sometimes incredibly difficult: it would fire missiles just before you ran into them offscreen, or crash into you, or bomb your convoys with perfect precision. I’m going to look over all this again, as well.
FYI, a few updates have been pushed today. • Tanks are now more evenly-balanced; CPU tanks no longer have the advantage of slightly-faster gunfire rates in hard + extreme mode. • Helicopter "responsiveness" tweaks, CPU + human. • Fuel burn rate reduced, closer to original game: ~30% (instead of ~50%) of a tank to fly across battlefield. • Smart missile "repair" (reloading) rate increased, closer to original: one for every 32 ammo added. • Infantry gunfire now takes a long time to take out turrets, like the original. • Slightly longer delays between enemy convoys on hard + extreme mode, it was pretty tough. • Allow CPU helicopters to use "tilt," vs. purely horizontal gunfire. Latest and greatest: github.com/scottschiller/ArmorAlley/blob/master/CHANGELOG.txt
Super fun! Thanks for making this... Quick question, one of the game tips that goes back suggests adjusting the game speed, but I haven't found anywhere where you can do that. Is there a way to adjust the game speed to make it easier or harder?
I apologize, I forgot to reply to this! My remake of the game includes all the original tips or hints, but I did not include the ability to save or resume games, nor did I work in the ability to adjust speed. I may make games saveable and resumable at some point in the future.
@@scottschiller What happened is: I had lots of credits and ordered many rocket launchers, like 4 or so in rapid order. They all came "out of the garage" but then they stuck there. They did not drive over to the enemy base. Every rocket launcher from then on just came out of the garage but then just stoped moving, I had some 8 overlapping immobile launchers in the end. Unfortunately this seemed to block also vans so that I could not end the game. Infantry and engineers passed the launchers though. I will try to reproduce that and then make a screenshot. I think it was triggered by pressing the rocketlauncher key to quickly.
Ah yes, good catch. I ran into this myself recently in testing, I don’t typically order large batches of missile launchers. This is a bug in the newer “traffic control” feature, where vehicles try not to overlap each other. You can try turning that off in options as a workaround for now, or space out your missile launcher orders a bit more.
@@scottschiller yep, just played around with it a bit, a bit more space between launchers avoids the issue. Thats an easy fix for me and I keep that traffic control option on. Basically one of my tactics back in the day was to fight with minimal ground troops, until your credit is up to say 60 or so and then send a large batch of mixed troops with lots of missile launchers to protect them and then just lean back. Wanted to check if this still works. (it does - at least in easy)
There was a game speed option in the PC-DOS version, but apparently not on the Macintosh version of the original game. I can try hacking in a few choices for speed, but they may not be very smooth.
I've added a prototype speed control feature. Try this, and let me know what you think. You can change the value in the URL, and/or use the - / + characters to change speed while playing the game. play.armor-alley.net/?gameSpeed=0.8
Thank you for this. Had alot of fun during my childhood. Now this is just much better. Too bad my brother is skeptical of the website tho 😅
Hopefully you do have time to create more scenarios in future.
This remake started in 2013, it’s hard to believe it’s almost 10 years old. It’s been a lot of fun to tinker on.
I based the easy mode on one of the first missions in the game, recreating the terrain and bunker layouts etc. Similarly for the other two modes. There are a few things I haven’t done like tank flamethrowers (which they fire illustratively only when clearing out bunkers, I think) and some other details. I think I got most of the core stuff, though.
I set up my site 20 years ago and it’s all fun side projects. It doesn’t have HTTPS / SSL on it at present, so browsers might show an “insecure” note - it’s only that the connection is not encrypted. It’s OK here since there’s no secret info like credit card info being transferred, but I do need to get SSL set up at some point. 😅
Used to be my favorite game back in the day circa 1990. Played it on a Mac. Love the browser interface. Can the game be downloaded to play offline?
You can grab the source of this on my GitHub, but it needs to be served over HTTP and not via file:// in the browser. I think there are some tips on this in the code. I’m working on more updates to this which I hope to have live soon, so stay tuned.
OMG! Thank you for making this. I remember playing this on my dad's computer. So cool that you made this
You are most welcome! I also played this on my Dad's computer, although it was "technically" the family computer - I probably spent the most time on it, and I definitely played a lot of Armor Alley back then. It was an 8088 IBM PC-compatible clone, which originally had an amber screen and later, I think, 4-bit if not 8-bit VGA colour. I know that by the time I was playing the DOS version of Armor Alley, it was in 16 colours.
@@scottschiller Mine was the Macintosh LC 630. I think the monitor had "thousands" of colors.
So, 2 things missing from the game. The first was the "return" key bailed out 3 pilots from helicopter. That's how I used to take the end bunker 😀
Also, I seem to remember the z key being the way to drop bombs, is there any way to remap that?
And lastly, the missiles are a bit too fast :-D I remember it being easier to dodge them.
Not gonna lie, I really like the banana missle
On a seperate note, is there any way you can do Power Pete? I know it's a bit more obscure than Armor Alley. I'm a React dev who has experience with WebGL - and I'm willing to help in any way. I just don't know where to get started
Thank you! As I understand, Armor Alley V1.0.1 (or 1.1?) on Mac added 8-bit colour - so I went back this year and referenced the 8-bit sprites from the 8-bit version. The differences are quite subtle, but they are there.
You are correct in that Z was the original key for bombs, I will add that back in. I took a few liberties with controls, here and there. You are the first (IIRC) to ask about that one. ;) Likewise for the bail / escape key, I will review vs. the original. I know the enemy / CPU helicopter would sometimes drop up to three paratroopers if you fired a missile at it. My recollection is the human player only dropped the pilot, but I will go back and look at the Mac version to see what is does in different levels / difficulties.
No plans for other games at present; I played Armor Alley on PC-DOS, originally.
I've just made "Z" the default for bombs, as in the original game. That change is now live on the site.
"Ctrl" is still an option, but it isn't shown as the default in the UI. As a kid, I would remap it to Ctrl for some reason - maybe because my pinky finger reached the control key more easily or something!
Fantastic work!
I just discovered this on the web, I used to LOVE LOVE LOVE this playing this game along with my roomates from college with MAC SE's and appletalk network, thank you for this remake!!!
You are most welcome, and I'm glad you found and enjoyed this remake. "Y'know something that never gets old? Nostalgia." ;)
I've continued work on this remake, and I'm rounding up a whole bunch of updates for a video I plan to make soon. The latest is always on the site itself, armor-alley.net.
10 years after I began this project and said I'd never do network multiplayer, I found myself with the time to take it on - and I got that out there earlier this year. Let me know if you try it out.
@@scottschillerI'm thinking of spinning up a few workstations just for this exclusively and try out the network play, will let you know how I fare out!
@AshWipe Most excellent. The network game should ideally be comparable to single-player mode, but let me know what you find. I haven’t had any notable bug reports, but I realize the network feature is a niche use case within a niche game. At the same time, I have had several people specifically mention fond memories of playing over the network - so I’m quite happy to say it’s finally an option!
Great programming :D
Oh my, I loved that game back then and I had so much fun playing this now!!! Great Work!!! But I do have some issues that decrease the fun and I have to admit that I do not remember how it was in the original game:
- the shrapnel is much too deadly
- fuel runs out much too fast (I can barely reach the enemy base without not being able to make it back) and/or rearming is super slow
- enemy copter is way too suicidal (always trying to kamikaze-hit my copter or it seems just to hover above one of my convoys, deliberatly waiting to be shot down to destroy half of my convoy with the sprapnel from his copter)
- enemy copter is also way faster than the player's
Again, can't remember how it was in the original, just some things I noticed.
Thanks for the feedback. I have been playing the original Mac game over the last week, going through all of the original campaigns and difficulties. There are a ton of details in the game, some of which I still don’t have a dozen years out. 😅
I will review the shrapnel, and maybe reduce its damage rate. It is aggressive in the original, but there may be less of it.
I just slowed down the fuel burn rate recently, but will review again as I have been testing this. Flying from one end to the other does burn a fair bit. You should be able to hang out for a minute before getting the low warning, and at that point you can make it “home” if you start flying back immediately.
Rearming missiles is probably slower than the original, and maybe also other munitions. I’ll try to time all these and compare vs. the original.
I assumed the enemy chopper was always faster than the human player, but they may actually fly at the same speed. Need to confirm.
The enemy chopper “AI” is rudimentary at best. The original game was sometimes incredibly difficult: it would fire missiles just before you ran into them offscreen, or crash into you, or bomb your convoys with perfect precision. I’m going to look over all this again, as well.
FYI, a few updates have been pushed today.
• Tanks are now more evenly-balanced; CPU tanks no longer have the advantage of slightly-faster gunfire rates in hard + extreme mode.
• Helicopter "responsiveness" tweaks, CPU + human.
• Fuel burn rate reduced, closer to original game: ~30% (instead of ~50%) of a tank to fly across battlefield.
• Smart missile "repair" (reloading) rate increased, closer to original: one for every 32 ammo added.
• Infantry gunfire now takes a long time to take out turrets, like the original.
• Slightly longer delays between enemy convoys on hard + extreme mode, it was pretty tough.
• Allow CPU helicopters to use "tilt," vs. purely horizontal gunfire.
Latest and greatest: github.com/scottschiller/ArmorAlley/blob/master/CHANGELOG.txt
Super fun! Thanks for making this... Quick question, one of the game tips that goes back suggests adjusting the game speed, but I haven't found anywhere where you can do that. Is there a way to adjust the game speed to make it easier or harder?
I apologize, I forgot to reply to this! My remake of the game includes all the original tips or hints, but I did not include the ability to save or resume games, nor did I work in the ability to adjust speed.
I may make games saveable and resumable at some point in the future.
Great just playing it. ... And found bugs ... still great though!
Ha! Let me know what bugs you found. I may have fixes for them in a pending update.
@@scottschiller What happened is: I had lots of credits and ordered many rocket launchers, like 4 or so in rapid order. They all came "out of the garage" but then they stuck there. They did not drive over to the enemy base. Every rocket launcher from then on just came out of the garage but then just stoped moving, I had some 8 overlapping immobile launchers in the end. Unfortunately this seemed to block also vans so that I could not end the game. Infantry and engineers passed the launchers though.
I will try to reproduce that and then make a screenshot.
I think it was triggered by pressing the rocketlauncher key to quickly.
@@scottschiller Another bug is, that the sprite of the enemy heli is sometimes distorted.
Ah yes, good catch. I ran into this myself recently in testing, I don’t typically order large batches of missile launchers. This is a bug in the newer “traffic control” feature, where vehicles try not to overlap each other. You can try turning that off in options as a workaround for now, or space out your missile launcher orders a bit more.
@@scottschiller yep, just played around with it a bit, a bit more space between launchers avoids the issue. Thats an easy fix for me and I keep that traffic control option on.
Basically one of my tactics back in the day was to fight with minimal ground troops, until your credit is up to say 60 or so and then send a large batch of mixed troops with lots of missile launchers to protect them and then just lean back. Wanted to check if this still works. (it does - at least in easy)
NICE GAME
any chance of putting a game speed control in there? for the "beginners" cough cough. or just me plz
There was a game speed option in the PC-DOS version, but apparently not on the Macintosh version of the original game. I can try hacking in a few choices for speed, but they may not be very smooth.
ty @@scottschiller
I've added a prototype speed control feature. Try this, and let me know what you think. You can change the value in the URL, and/or use the - / + characters to change speed while playing the game. play.armor-alley.net/?gameSpeed=0.8
Where can you play the web based game? Thanks!
Link should be in the description on this video.
@@scottschiller Thank you! :)