RTL - realtime lighting demo

Last updated on July 1, 1999, to work under Linux. Previously updated on June 21, 1999, to work with the 3.9.x Allegro WIP versions, and to compile under Windows using MSVC.

This program is really more of a "technology demo" than a complete game. I wrote it in May 1998 as a simple experiment, because I was curious to see whether true pixel-level lighting could be done at a reasonable framerate. The results were impressive enough that I went on to draw some proper graphics and added a few flying saucers for you to shoot at, but it would take a lot more work to turn this into a lastingly fun game rather than just a cool visual effect.

The game is basically a Space Invaders ripoff, with a sideways scrolling engine, three layers of background parallax, smooth dynamic lighting, and some (heavily overused! :-) lensflare effects. It runs smoothly enough (20 fps) on my p133, but probably won't be very playable on slower machines.

This program is free. You may do anything you like with it.

rtl.zip (286k, source and DOS binary)

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