37 waves defeated on my first try. Really nice game.

EDIT: 44 waves defeated. At some point I tried to pause it to take a rest but it was impossible. A pause key would be great.

I forgot to take a snapshot when I reached Wave 45 and haven't been able to repeat it, so I'll post this snapshot instead.

I guess this is as far as I'll get without a hotkey for repairing... which, on the other hand, might make it too easy.

http://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/597189

I got the zip version, and it crashed at the start of level 30, I finished 29 and it locked up with the sound looping. It was before the label for the boss appeared.

Is there any hope of a Mac port of this? I'd offer to do one myself but am considering what I believe will be a similar game to this (based on the descriptions; I haven't played it yet) as a commercial iPhone project so would rather not have access to the source.

EDIT: more ports = more changes of finding that pernicious little bug.

Well in my head I was thinking "tower defence, but from the side", but nevertheless it sounds like a fun game and I'd like to play it; and I definitely wouldn't want to risk any potential allegation of source theft.

I guess I'll just have to endure a Parallels Desktop session, though that never-quite-resolved bug in which Allegro - when using the DirectX driver - does not update its client window is quite acute.

What do the shock towers do, I got to about level 20 without knowing

Yes, precisely. Also, when checking which weapons require repairing, I'd skip a couple on each corner since they're not likely to receive much damage, and you can check them only near the end of the wave, when things are calm. Well, that was my strategy, but seems that Peter Wang found a better one.

I kinda think about it as "Space Invaders meets RTS".

Oh, and shock towers launch a ray that destroys an enemy with one hit. It's hard to see them working when there's a lot of things going on onscreen, but they do work.

[EDIT:] 50 waves defeated (same as Peter Wang). All weapons fully upgraded and yet you lose. I think it's not possible to go any further.

{"name":"597196","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/f\/5ff2a97760ad61c2c3b6e7f980d9489f.png","w":645,"h":511,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/f\/5ff2a97760ad61c2c3b6e7f980d9489f"}

The basic game is good, but it gets boring once it turns into the "click-and-repair-as-fast-as-I-can" mode.

Yes, I could, and I planned to do it. But, actually, the only reason I went and improved this (old and antiquated) version of Cosmic Invaders is because it's going to get some more mainstream distribution. Don't hold your breath for the deluxe version any time soon...

Right, not particularly insightful comments from me that cut barely relate all to the game:

• it would be nice to have an alternative to right clicking due to the usual ye olde Allegro versus trackpad issues*;

• other than that the game is neat

• in that most trackpads are set up so that if you have tap click set, when you tap the OS just sends a 'user clicked message'. Ye olde Allegro abhores message passing, so maps this to the relevant button being down for an absolutely tiny fraction of a second. If your application doesn't poll in that period then it doesn't catch the click. This affects all computers I guess, but is much worse for Mac users since two-finger tap is the de facto method of right clicking in the absence of a physical second mouse button.

Having now compared the new version to the 2007, I'm not completely sure about the bosses. In particular, the way the bombs cost you 1 of your life meter units if they don't hit an installation doesn't feel right — I appreciate that the point of a strategy game is to create conflicting interests, but it feels like the benefit of filling the floor to deliberately take damage that you can pay off just for boss levels doesn't fit neatly with the benefit of leaving the floor relatively sparse to avoid damage in the normal levels. But maybe that's just me?

Perhaps not a "repair all" button, but if you hold down alt, it shows the health bar for all the units. So that its clear which need repairing, and which don't so you don't waste time clicking on them all.