Informal Patch Notes for 0.1.9
In no particular order, here are some notes about EA0.1.9:
Fixed incorrect capitalization on HUD UI
Pyxel shade labels - should be rPx, gPx, and bPx (the DRONE SERIF font shows lowercase as a downward-shifted glyph, will take a look at this at some point)
Reworked shield particle systems to give them more energy and rhythm
Reworked cargo bay controls:
As in 0.1.8, holding down a cargo bay input will jettison any cargo in that bay
Holding down a cargo bay input for a bay with no currently held cargo opens that bay for storage
Releasing a cargo bay input for an empty bay with no cargo closes that bay
Consumables/pickups from the level can only be stored in an empty bay that is open and engaged for storage
(In the future, installable/craftable upgrades to the player ship will allow things like automatically opening the next available bay when cargo is near, tractor beams that draw floating cargo towards the ship, filter modules that automatically open a specific bay when a specific type of cargo is nearby, and so on)
As in 0.1.8, pressing a cargo bay input (without holding) activates whatever is in that bay
Updated controls text in options menu to reflect cargo bay control changes
Added cosmic amoebae particle system to level background to give more depth and life
Cosmic amoebae particle movement mostly tied to ship velocity (inverted)
This game is very much back in my mind again and I'm going to see what I can do about starting back up on it regularly. There's a lot left unfinished, I haven't re-read my prior roadmap and other updates so 0.1.9 has likely fallen a bit short of what was promised in terms of functionality, but if things continue as they have been (no promises here) I will have some more information and updates to follow in the coming weeks.
I'm having fun playing it. I think I need to rework how levels are displayed. The scrolling background was a nice shortcut and an homage to the retro games that inspired this but I think are probably best left in the "arcade" mode. Going to look into the following as priorities, and then get back into the list of features I was working on when things were interrupted:
Fill out the missing space in landscape orientation - the concept of this first iteration of DS was meant to keep the top-down display in the center with HUD details and other info either side, but if we're rebuilding level generation and the spawning of enemies, maybe it makes sense to extend the level to reach across the entire display and adjust accordingly
Get a collection of "galactic objects" to include in a level - planets, satellites (real and artificial), wreckage, stars, etc.... anything spacey and sci-fi-coded and fun and cool to look at while you fly past it. Big stuff, far away in the background that moves by slowly
Establish a few characteristics of a "level" from a proc-gen pov (loosely speaking):
there's the galactic background (stars, galaxies, cosmic phenomena) which should mainly appear as points of light, using greyscale or the high-value color from the current palette (maybe have these randomly occasionally use other colors from the palette, colors from other palettes, and transforms of these based on local chomble factors)
next would be local background - planets, satellites, the local star(s), as larger elements with colors from the full palette - these use transforms and shifts more frequently to keep things fresh but should follow a consistent "feel" within a system when sensible and possible
next we have the chromapause
the border of the current shadespace route and a volatile and dangerous boundary between physical space and the chromatic dimension used by the in-game smugglers to encrypt and decrypt data
this should appear as a series of particle and other fx that give the impression of energy, almost like a living, moving forcefield, but without distracting from the action in the foreground. This is currently where the "dust" particles live that move and trail along the Y-axis on the screen.
A constant progressive motion should be indicated here (e.g. the current y-axis trail particles) giving the player the feeling that the space they are flying in is also a medium that is constantly propelling them forward relative to their local cosmic neighbors at great speed and without regard for traditional orbital physics
next is the cosmic amoebae
these are colorful specks, blobs, and otherwise amorphous and inconstant shapes that move and flow with the player's movement on-screen
Currently tuned to respond to the ship's velocity and provide some contrary motion to help with tracking flight vectors while scanning other parts of the screen for obstacles (in other words, when your eyes aren't fixed on your ship sprite, you can still infer your direction and rate of travel based on the relative movement of this layer)
these should pull from all the colors of all the palettes, and should be felt more than seen - these should not pull focus from the action
finally the foreground - where asteroids, ships, and other in-flight objects exist
Rebuild enemy spawning from the ground up. there's a lot to consider here - but it's all documented pretty well in my in-engine notes. More flow, more rhythm, more surprises, but also more consistency (sure, this sounds like nonsense, but there's logic to it, I swear...)
Focus on parameterizing level gen. Any properties which are not already accessible and modifiable from the game logic when levels are being generated need to be refactored to allow this. This way, a level can be a set of numbers until accessed, creating repeatable "areas" which have some consistent elements and some varied elements
A level in privateer mode is an area within a local star system - so we should always see the same galactic background
However, the "local" background can include anything from the local star system (or nothing if it's truly deep space) - so this should vary but not so much that it seems like you're in different systems each time
Chromapause should be consistent within a system, similar to the galactic bg
Cosmic Amoebae need not concern themselves with consistency
If I can do these things and still have a game I enjoy playing at the end of it, I'll likely look to incorporating the first rudimentary elements of privateer mode.