Asteroids

My take on the classic arcade game, written in C++20 with SFML. Dodge asteroids, fight alien ships and chase highscores alone or with a friend.

Linux is the currently supported release platform.

Gameplay

Start with three lives and survive increasingly challenging waves.

• Waves last 30 seconds. Remaining enemies carry over into the next wave.
• Clear all enemies and scheduled spawns early to earn a bonus and start a five-second break before the next wave.
• Different wave types vary asteroid pressure and alien encounters.
• Large aliens fire three-shot fans; small aliens fire aimed shots.
• Earn extra lives at 3,000, 7,000 and 12,000 points, then every additional 6,000 points. You can hold up to five lives.
• Temporary protection applies at the start and after respawning.
• Music responds to the current danger instead of resetting every wave.

A hit costs one life. In solo mode, the run ends when you run out of lives. In cooperative mode, it ends when both players are out.

Local Co-op

Two players share the same screen, with separate scores and lives. Enemy arrivals increase while both players remain in the game.

Profiles and Highscores

Create a profile or select an existing name before playing. Solo and cooperative highscores are stored separately.

On Linux, scores are normally saved in:

~/.local/share/asteroids/

If XDG_DATA_HOME is set to an absolute path, the game uses $XDG_DATA_HOME/asteroids/ instead.

Score storage includes backups and best-effort migration of older records. If saving fails, the game displays a message.

Controls

Keyboard

Action	Solo / Player 1	Player 2
Thrust	W	Up arrow
Rotate left	A	Left arrow
Rotate right	D	Right arrow
Shoot	Space	Right Ctrl

Each press fires one shot. Holding the fire button does not enable autofire.

Action	Key
Continue from the start screen	Enter
Select solo / cooperative mode	1 / 2
Pause / resume	P
Toggle sound	M
Exit during gameplay	Esc

The game pauses when its window loses focus.

Controller

The current mapping targets PS4 controllers:

• Left stick: rotate.
• X: shoot.
• R2: thrust.

In cooperative mode, the first and second controllers control Player 1 and Player 2 respectively. Other controller mappings are not guaranteed.

Profile Selection

• Arrow keys: navigate profiles.
• Type a name to create a profile.
• Enter: confirm.
• Delete: remove the selected profile and its saved scores.

Download

Available builds and installation instructions are listed on the GitHub Releases page.

Use the dependency instructions for the selected release. Windows and macOS support is not yet verified for version 1.1.

Build from Source

Requirements:

• A C++20-compatible compiler.
• CMake 3.22.1 or newer.
• SFML 2.6.x with graphics, window, system and audio components.

git clone https://github.com/vnic03/Asteroids
cd Asteroids

cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build -j2

./build/Asteroids

Alternatively, the Linux helper script builds and starts the game:

./run.sh

CMake copies the required assets into the build directory.

Configuration

The game supports these environment variables:

Variable	Purpose
ASTEROIDS_ASSET_DIR	Custom asset directory
ASTEROIDS_FONT	Custom font file
ASTEROIDS_DATA_DIR	Custom score storage directory
ASTEROIDS_LEGACY_DIR	Directory containing legacy score files

Master, music and effects volumes can currently be adjusted in src/music/AudioSettings.h. There is no in-game volume settings menu yet.

Development

C++ formatting is configured through .clang-format. The project currently uses clang-format 18 with an 80-column limit.

find src -type f \( -name '*.cpp' -o -name '*.h' \) \
    -exec clang-format -i {} +

See CHANGELOG.md for release changes and LICENSE for licensing information.

This is my first C++ project, built to learn the language. Thanks for playing!