Even though I’ve been silent on the site for a while (busy with real-life and programming mostly), work on my game is progressing along. I think the game will be finished very soon… at least, ready for an initial release…
Special Powers
I’ve added some cool special powers, an “easy” mode for people not used to the thrust/turn system and a use for landing on things. I’ve also added a new scenario for the game where you have a big planet with a couple of orbiting moons.
The special powers right now are:
– Shield: Double tap the firing area and hold. The shield will absorb all damage as long as you hold your touch or until its energy is depleted. Note that you can’t fire while it’s on… It also doesn’t prevent the force of the collisions affecting your movement, so you’ll still bump around…
– Teletransportation: Double tap the firing area to jump to a random location. Jumping consumes a fixed amount of energy.
– Invisivility: Works the same as the shield. Double tap and hold while you want to be invisible. If you accelerate, the smoke from your ship will still be visible. Again, you spend energy while the power is active and will become visible if you run out.
– Missile: This one is pretty obvious: double tap the firing area to release a missile that will try to hit your enemy.
– Laser: Double tap and hold on the firing area and a laser beam appears in front of your ship while you keep pressing. If it touches anything it will be damaged continuously as long as you keep your touch or have energy.
– Firing turret: (Not yet implemented) I’m thinking of adding this one. Basically double tap and hold to start a continuous stream of bullets that are fired at the direction your enemy is. They’re normal bullets (they don’t track the enemy ship).
Now that I added these powers, which have their own energy which gets spent pretty quickly, I’ve also added a use for landing. Just land on an asteroid, moon or planet and this energy will slowly be recharged. You’re own ship will also repair (at a slower pace).
Easy Mode
Now, the “easy” mode (and I say “easy” because to me it’s actually harder…) is just a switch from relative controls (thrust/turn system) to absolute ones. Just drag your finger in one direction and hold, and as long as you hold it, the ship will turn to face that direction and start accelerating.
What the ship does automatically is exactly the same that a player would have to do to achieve the same movement (turn for a while, and accelerate), but it’s simplified for people that have trouble or just don’t like thrust/turn games. Now you just drag and the ship will turn itself using the shortest direction. If you just want to turn, not accelerate, then release your finger when the ship is facing the desired direction.
I wasn’t sure whether to add this mode or not, as I feel the game should be played as it was intended, but I understand not everyone is used to rotation controls which can be confusing at first, so I finally decided to add this so more people can enjoy the game… It’s specially useful to find opponents…
So… this is it for now… Of course, I’ve been doing a lot more with the game as it progresses: optimizing wherever I find a way to do it and adding stuff under the hood like a settings pane, etc… Now I want to make all the ship models and decide which ship has which power and make a few more scenarios to play in. Ideas are an empty one and one with a black hole (yeah… how original, I know…)
Hopefully I’ll post a movie soon…