SharpSteroids: Console Edition

SharpSteroids is a high-performance recreation of the classic arcade game Asteroids, built entirely in C# targeting .NET 10.

This project was a "side quest" challenge to build a mini-game engine abstraction capable of vector-based physics and procedural level generation, rendered purely via ASCII/Unicode characters in the system console.

🎯 Project Goals

• No External Game Libraries: Built without Unity, MonoGame, or SDL. Just raw .NET.
• Engine Abstraction: Implemented a custom pipelines.
• Math: Custom 2D vector physics for thrust, drag, and collision detection.
• Procedural Generation: Endless waves of asteroids with increasing difficulty.

🕹️ Gameplay

The game runs directly in your terminal.

• Controls:
  • ↑ / W: Thrust
  • ← / → or A / D: Rotate Ship
  • Space: Fire
  • Esc: Quit
• Objective: Destroy all asteroids. Large asteroids break into smaller ones. Don't get hit.

🛠️ Architecture

The solution is built on a custom "Console Frame Buffer" approach:

1. Input Loop: Asynchronous interception of keypresses.
2. Update Loop: Calculates delta time ($dt$), updates position vectors, and handles torus-wrapping (screen wrap).
3. Render Loop: Writes a 2D char array buffer to the Console StdOut in a single pass to minimise flickering.

🚀 How to Run

Prerequisites: .NET 10 SDK (Preview or Latest Daily Build).

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone repo_url

2. Navigate to the directory:

   cd AsteroidsGame

3. Run the application:

   dotnet run -c Release

Note: For the best visual experience, use a terminal that supports ANSI escape codes (Windows Terminal, PowerShell Core, or iTerm2).

⚠️ Maintenance Status

This project is IN PROGRESS. It was created as a specific coding challenge and is provided as-is for educational purposes. Pull requests and issues are not monitored (mainly because I cannot be bothered).

📄 License

Distributed under the MIT License.