A few days before the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, I updated the playtest build with a massive update thanks to all of your feedback.
Here's a summary of the major changes:
New features and game updates
- The aesthetic of the game incl. TileMap, space background, and ship have been overhauled
- Player's ship now pays homage to the Electro Havoc logo (though still in progress) includes a thruster burn "tail" that reacts to the player's movements
- Player's ship now rotates to direction of input
- "Enemies left" counter added to help keep track of wave progress
- Power-up compass indicator added that points you to off-screen power-ups
- Enemy splash damage now has more unique animations and aligned color palette
- Added "back button" support to controllers
- Added Godot logo on start-up
- Increased the map size and game resolution (from 720p to 1080p)
- Enemies no longer cluster awkwardly close together or on TileMap boundaries
- Enemies no longer "stick" to the player as easily, draining their life; instead they are repelled back upon initial damage
- Added screen shake when enemies hit you
- Spawn indicators now differentiated between power-ups and enemies to avoid confusion
- Added damage numbers that appear above an enemy's head when your bullet collides with them
- Introduced a critical hit capability, and corresponding Steam achievement to match
- Extended the power-up time-outs on the map to give you more a chance of snagging it before it expires
Bug fixes and performance updates
- Steam profile names no longer truncated
- Shader updates to player's ship
- Splash damage now only visible when it should be
- Resolved A-Star pathfinding performance issues that could result from use of navigation elements on individual tiles vs. using a nav region
- Upgraded TileMap Nodes to TileMapLayer Nodes for improved performance
- Enemies no longer get stuck to player as easily
- Enemies no longer spawn at power-up locations
- Power-ups now consistently spawn after hitting "Try Again"
- Enemies now completely self-destruct after game end, no longer leaving 1-2 stragglers
- Addressed a few visual artifacts, spawn portals not visualizing in the right spots
If you haven't given the playtest a shot, please jump in and let me know what you think in the comments.