Deck16

Impulse

What is Impulse?

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Picture a mash-up of Super Meat Boy and Lunar Lander. Or N+ meets Asteroids. That’s Impulse.

The premise is simple. You need to guide your craft to the exit point of each level, avoiding the various obstacles and bad guys.

(It’s better to watch the trailer in HD if you can.)

Levels are short, sometimes brutal affairs. There are no life limits, retry as many times as you need. Restarting a level is instant. There’s no waiting or loading — one moment you’re dead, a click of the mouse later and you’re ready to try again. You can even suicide so you don’t have to wait for death when you know you’ve fouled up.

Your craft is at the whim of Newtonian physics. With only a simple thruster you need to battle the forces of gravity and atmospheric drag all while avoiding high-speed impact. The trouble is that all these variables are liable to change with each level. Gravity could be strong, or weak, or zero; it may pull in any direction. Drag might mirror the vacuum of space or the ocean depths. Your craft’s thrusters might be strong or weak. You might have limited or limitless fuel. Your hull might laugh off high-speed impacts or it might shatter from the slightest bump.

With all these variables, levels take on very different feels. Some require careful thinking and gentle, deliberate action. Others are all about reflexes and reaction. Most are a mixture of both.

Download

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Impulse is a free game for Windows. It should run on any Windows version newer than XP (including Vista, 7, 8, and 10).

Steam
Impulse is available for free on Steam. Installing via Steam sets up everything you need to get Impulse running.

itch.io
Impulse installers can be downloaded for free from itch.io.

Reviews

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Pirate Bay Bundle

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In March 2014, Impulse was selected to be part of the Pirate Bay Bundle, a collection of free indie games described as:

A torrent containing one hundred small, weird, free (mostly ignored) videogames that you probably haven’t played made by well over one hundred passionate game makers.

More information:

Music

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Several composers contributed to the music in Impulse.

Tracks by Michael Chadwick:

Tracks by Shawn Crawford:

Tracks by Hagen & Coldfingers:

Tracks by Kyer Kahn:

Tracks by Rob Northcott of Spooky Castle Music:

Tracks by Daniel “Shrack” Swearengin:

Tracks by 12 Followers/Meteo Xavier:

Level Editor

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Impulse comes with a level editor. To learn more the level editor and level editing in general, click here.

Acknowledgements

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Sound effects by Daniel “Shrack” Swearengin.

Impulse uses the following fonts:

Impulse was built with the following technologies:

The Impulse level editor was built with the following technologies:

Some code inspired by Vector Rumble.

Thanks to Nelson Hurst for his XNA 3.1 to 4.0 Cheat Sheet.

The Impulse installer uses Inno Setup.

Icons were created with IcoFX.

Version History

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The latest version is always available from the download links above.

3 October 2021
Game version: 1.0.7945.2176
Editor version: 1.0.4470.25493
Changed to using HiDef profile to support resolutions up to 4096 x 4096. (Up from 2048 x 2048 which was less acceptable in an age of 1440p.)

24 July 2012
Game version: 1.0.4587.32206
Editor version: 1.0.4470.25493
Added one new music track by 12 Followers/Meteo Xavier: Strange Rock in the Heavens.

4 June 2012
Game version: 1.0.4537.22459
Editor version: 1.0.4470.25493
Added 9 new music tracks by 12 Followers/Meteo Xavier.

18 April 2012
Game version: 1.0.4490.1807
Editor version: 1.0.4470.25493
Added two new music tracks by Rob Northcott: Deluge and Kraft-Lite.

28 March 2012
Game version: 1.0.4469.33913
Editor version: 1.0.4470.25493
Fixed a problem where different regional symbols used for a decimal point would cause level loading and saving problems in Impulse and the level editor. Forced invariant culture in both. (Thanks again Zoltán!)

28 March 2012
Game version: 1.0.4469.23046
Editor version: 1.0.4392.42865
Fixed a problem where Impulse could crash on startup in regions where month-names contain non-ASCII characters. A default character is now rendered instead. (Thanks Zoltán!)

11 March 2012
Game version: 1.0.4452.21669
Editor version: 1.0.4392.42865
Initial Release

FAQ and Troubleshooting

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Everything’s so small! How can I see what I’m doing?

Have you tried using the zoom controls? By default, it is bound to the mouse-wheel.

I got stuck in a level and there’s nothing I can do except quit out and come back to the level. What gives?

In situations like that, you’re supposed to suicide your craft. This allows you to instantly try again. (Indeed, it’s not just useful for when you get totally stuck, but when you know you’ve gotten off to a bad start and just want to try again.)

By default, suicide is bound to the middle mouse button and the space bar.

The game’s performance is terrible, how can I improve it?

Go to the Settings page from the main menu. Do you have particle rendering set to “full”? That’s probably causing the problem. Change it to “standard” or “off”.

I made a level using the editor and would like to submit it for inclusion in the game.

Great! Contact me (see below) and send me the file!

Make sure you set your “author name” in the editor so, when the level is played, everyone knows that you created it.

How do I use “Safe Mode”?

Running the game in “safe mode” will reset the game’s resolution to 800 x 600, windowed. This can be useful if you have set the resolution to a value that causes problems.

To run Safe Mode:

After changing the game’s resolution, the game crashes with an error message “An unexpected error has occurred.”

Try running the game in a lower resolution. Use “Safe Mode” (see above) if the resolution you chose is making it impossible to start the game.

I set the graphics resolution to a value my monitor cannot display, and now I can’t see anything!

First of all, keep pushing the Escape key until the game exits. Then use “Safe Mode” (see above).

The game window sometimes shifts slightly, or flickers, or behaves oddly in the taskbar.

This can happen when Impulse loses focus (i.e. when you click outside the window) and you return to the game. A quick fix is to restart the game.

That said, this problem only seems to happen when the game is played in a window. By playing in fullscreen mode (in the Settings menu) this problem shouldn’t happen.

I am getting an error “Song playback failed. Please verify that the song is not DRM protected.”

This error happens when Windows Media Player has been uninstalled. I believe it is limited to Windows 7 machines. Reinstall Windows Media Player by following these steps:

  1. Click Start > Control Panel.
  2. Select “Uninstall a Program” (or “Programs and Features” if you are not using categories view).
  3. Click on “Turn Windows features on or off”.
  4. Expand “Media Features”.
  5. Ensure “Windows Media Player” is checked.
  6. Click OK.

You should now be able to play Impulse.

(I want to apologise to anyone who doesn’t want Windows Media Player on their system. At the time of coding Impulse I wasn’t aware that Media Player would be a requirement to music playback. Had I been aware I would’ve investigated other means of music playback.)

(Thanks to Cheezy WEAPON for sending me a stack trace and otherwise helping figure out this error.)

I am getting an error “A previous Draw call threw an unhandled exception.”

In my experience, this error requires three things:

So, when recording Impulse video, remember to stop recording before switching out to another application.

I am getting an error “Cannot access a disposed object. Object name: ‘WindowsGameForm’.”

In my experience, this error happens when you are playing Impulse in full-screen mode and you rotate the screen. (This requires a tablet-like device such as a Microsoft Surface.)

You can disable screen rotation. This should allow you to play the game.

If you run into issues re-launching the game, consult the topic above titled “I set the graphics resolution to a value my monitor cannot display, and now I can’t see anything!”

The game is crashing but not in any of the ways listed above.

Do you have these prerequisites installed?

(Steam and the full installer should automatically install these, and the game-only installer should warn you if these frameworks are missing.)

If you do have these prerequisites I’ve no idea why the game would crash. I’d be thankful if you could contact me (see below) to send me the crash message (you can Ctrl+C the dialog to copy the message) and the circumstances under which it arose.

Why does the game not show my monitor’s native resolution?

When Impulse was written, 1080p was the common resolution. Technology has moved on and now resolutions like 1440p are common.

Impulse is limited to resolutions whose height and width are both equal to or smaller than 4096 pixels (or 2048 pixels in version 1.0.4587.32206 and earlier versions).

Consequently, very high resolutions are not displayed as options.

I am a gamer with impaired vision and have trouble playing Impulse.

Unfortunately I did not include any settings to explicitly help gamers with limited vision.

If you are an advanced user, you can edit the Impulse.exe.config file to change all sorts of game features, including colours and font sizes.

Naturally you should be careful when editing the config file. There are plenty of settings other than colours and font sizes. Changing these could alter gameplay or even break the game entirely.

How can I contact the author?

My contact details can be found here.