UFO — A 2D Sci-Fi Survival Game

Overview

UFO is a 2D top-down sci-fi survival game developed as part of the CSCI-437 final project at William & Mary. Built using C++ and SDL2, UFO challenges players to explore, survive, and escape from a hostile alien planet. The project emphasizes component-based design, event-driven architecture, and full lifecycle game development — from design to implementation, testing, and presentation.

This game was created by a team of 4 students over the course of the semester, with each member contributing equally to all areas: design, coding, art, testing, and documentation.

---

Game Description

In UFO, you play as a stranded Undercover Ferret Opperative who must navigate an alien spaceship filled with enemies, environmental hazards, and limited resources. The ultimate goal is to gather enough AT (Alien Technology) to escape the ship, all while managing oxygen, avoiding enemies, and strategically upgrading your gear.

Core Features

• Top-down 2D gameplay using SDL2 and C++
• Modular Entity-Component System architecture
• Fully implemented ChatBox system for command-line interactions
• Upgrade system with abilities like shield, invisibility, AT cannon
• Boss battles with unique minion and projectile mechanics
• Save/load functionality with a custom SaveSelector UI
• Configurable settings through the SettingsMenu
• LeaderboardMenu with multiple sorting criteria
• Visual assets loaded via TxdLoader and AsepriteLoader
• Audio layered via AudioLoader

---

Project Structure

• bin/ — Main compiled executable
• cmake/ — CMake build configuration
• include/ — Header files
• resource/ — Game assets (textures, audio, fonts, etc.)
• src/ — All game logic, entities, systems, and UI code

---

Build Instructions

Dependencies

Install the following:

• GCC or MinGW (Windows)
• CMake
• SDL2 libraries: SDL2, SDL2_image, SDL2_gfx, SDL2_ttf, SDL2_mixer

Linux

Use your package manager to install the dependencies (e.g. apt, dnf, pacman). Then:

git clone https://github.com/Peter-Greek/UFO.git
cd UFO
mkdir Debug && cd Debug
cmake ..
make

Windows (MSYS2)

Install MSYS2 and use the MINGW64 terminal:

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain cmake git \
  mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2 \
  mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2_image \
  mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2_gfx \
  mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2_ttf \
  mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2_mixer

git clone https://github.com/Peter-Greek/UFO.git
cd UFO
mkdir Debug && cd Debug
cmake.exe -G "MinGW Makefiles" ..
mingw32-make.exe

---

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

---

Contact

For academic use or questions, contact Peter Greek or open an issue on GitHub.