Herschel Space Blast :

Herschel Space Blast is an educational top down space shooter, where the players control the European Space Agency's Herschel Observatory. It is written in C++, and uses OpenGL with SDL.

The source code is available here, and the release is available here. It requires the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package be installed, this is included with the release package as 'vcredist_x86.exe'.

There are two gameplay modes availible in this game. Story mode features 5 levels which seperately introduce each element of gameplay, whilst attempting to explain the underlying science. Arcade mode utilizes all the main elements of gameplay immediately, with difficulty increasing over time, and only ending when the player is dead.

For the sprites in this game I've used images from both the Hubble Space Telescope and the Herschel Space Observatory. The Herschel and asteroid sprites were taken from models provided by my good friend Dr. Rhys Taylor. All sounds used, as well as the main theme, were created by myself.