Well thanks, but i'm actually kindasorta putting it on a hiatus now, partially because of the point Simon brought up. It's not very original! I could live with that normally, but making the levels is SO TEDIOUS. I don't know how many enemies are in one level, but i think it's easily above 200 (since you can get over 4000 points from a good run in one level, and even then you've barely destroyed half the ships), all of which are placed by hand. Also, making all the sprites takes forever.
But, i won't say that this is the final update, since it might tickle me fancy to work some more on it later. For now, enjoy what's there. :U

@Thorn: Great to hear you had fun. Sorry to disappoint you with lacking levels. ;)

Good news everyone!



I am resuming work on this because i read a highly inspiring article on the nets. And also because i hate leaving things unfinished.

Anyhoo, about the image: It is a new enemy i dubbed the Fan, because of its fan-like wings. And because of how it follows you in a manner most annoying. Basically, it adds hostile strafing runs to the game, and you'll be hating them very quickly. They pop up quickly, shoot a quick 6-round burst at you and then zips off to the side before crashing into you (which could still happen if you dodge haplessly). Don't worry though, i won't be using these as much as ubiquitous Wedge. :U (also, the toughest version of it will be sporting 4 guns rather than 2, so you get 12 boolits shot at you)

In other news, i also managed to fabricate a video of me completing level 7 on normal. (i bet you'd be more impressed if it was on Nightmare, but hey, i didn't call it Nightmare because it was anything close to easy)



Be sure to watch it full-size on youtube too, because i went through great effort to get an ok-ish quality on the video. So yeah, stay tuned, might have a new version before a million years have passed.

Glad to hear that! I'm also glad myself, because i just know i'll be like "oh you sod why did you not complete that game" when i get older if i don't complete it.

Also, progress report of today: Finished level 8 (which is deliciously annoying), Fan ships are working smoothly (though i need to tweak their retreating a bit), and i have concluded that it is, in fact, possible to complete the current public version on Nightmare, as i did so in class today. I only died twice; one of the times was against the boss, who's an absolute dickhead on Nightmare with those instant lasers. Hence, i decided to oblige to BishopOne's possibly-joking request to have a super heroically hard super man mode.



EPIC MAN MODE. Thought Nightmare was bad with the double damage? Well guess what, on EPIC MAN MODE you take twenty times the normal damage. Things to note: You have 100 health. Small lasers do 5 base damage. 5 times 20 equals 100. So if you have no armor, absolutely everything kills you instantly. With armor/shield, you can survive a single shot. With extreme armor buffing, you might even survive two!!! Red wedges are basically flying death sentences though, because they deal 25 damage on Normal. Good luck surviving that on EPIC MAN MODE.

OK SO

Progress report: Past few days have been slow, what with Mass Effect 3 popping up. Currently working on making green beams (the instant ones) reflect off your shield, and i've made a new sprite for the beam ships, which are now called Bzapks.

Old:


New:


So yeah. I've also begun work on the second boss' sprite, though that'll probably take some time, in that it's more than twice as large. It also has a really simple outline, so i'll have to make tons of details on it to compensate. :c

Other planned features for next version:
- Level 9, which introduces yellow Bzapks, whose beams act like the current green ones (meaning that they pierce and collapse your shield instantly)
- Spread shot upgrade in shop
- Super recharge speed upgrade
- Maybe level 10, which introduces the next boss
- New shield graphics

You totally should, it's free and not very big. I still appreciate any comments, believe it or not. :U

Also, before i call it a day...



REFLECTION. Now i just need to add the final bit of polish to the effects of it, and i can start doing level 9.

Thanks! Also, NEWS FLASH.



Yellow beams don't give a shit about your shields. Y'know, just to mitigate the fact that green beams bounce off now. They also hurt more, as you can see, since it hurts enough to trigger the red screen flash. The good news is that they don't damage your shield at all. Also...



Spread shot is a reality. The implementation of it went amazingly well; the very first idea and try i had, and it worked perfectly. It's an extremely powerful upgrade, even with the massive debuff in damage (-5 currently) it gives you. The shown configuration (all turret upgrades + 4 skillpoints in turret damage) was easily able to plow through level 4 without even touching the front guns. Unfortunately for you, the upgrade is really expensive, and getting it that early will probably cripple you horribly. Why? Because if you take that huge damage debuff before being able to support it (i.e. dropping below 7 is bad news, below 5 is a death sentence), you won't be able to kill the enemies properly. Which reminds me, it should be possible to sell upgrades again, in case you find yourself hitting an impasse because of poor upgrade choices.

I'm watching how you progress Shook. Good job.
I would like to make you another menu screen image, since I'm sure I can do it better. No charge or anything, just want to help you in your work. If you want, that is.

I was thinking to make it a bit more appealing. Some girl in the pilot space suit standing in front of the space fighter and behind her is a planet surface with space above and the space ship fight.

I just need the dimensions of the image, and I'll send you PSD file, so you can latter add game name above all of it. Just say the word.

...And if you wish something else (maybe u have different idea for the menu screen image), just tell me what you want.

You would? Awesome! It's not that the current background is bad (it's really quite nice), but if you say you can do even better, then by all means, go for it! Image resolution is 640x480, and i have no better ideas than you do. :U

In other news...



Spot the difference(s). Basically all i have to do now is to make level 9, which involves placing a metric fuckton of enemies.

Yes indeed. c:

@JellyNinja: THANK YOU FOR YOUR INPUT! I've been dying to hear what people think, but nobody cared enough to make a detailed comment like that, until now. (now don't get me wrong, i still greatly appreciate any relevant comment/offer)
As for pad... Well, i don't use it myself, which complicates things. Game Maker does have joystick support though, so i won't rule it out entirely, but it doesn't seem to support omnidirectional input like a joystick is actually capable of. It only has up/down/left/right for options, which is fine for movement, but sub-par for the turret unless i make some clever auto-targeting shenanigans (which is super hard). So yeah, maybe in the future, but no guarantees.

@Chartle: Glad to have picked it up again. ;)
Also, I SHALL. No major issues right now, but at some point i might need assistance with saving things in a text file or something, unless i can work out a clever way to keep tabs on progress with the normal saves (different profiles??).

Also, currently working on level 9 (which you will hate me for, it's the absolute hardest level up till now), and have done a few tweaks to things. Notably, shields now take damage proportional to the difficulty (they didn't before), so now they can't save your butt quite as much on Nightmare. On the other hand, a new pair of upgrades speed up shield recharge and "down time", which is the time after getting hit/broken where it doesn't recharge.
Basically, a shield without those upgrades has a down time of 30 ticks (60 when broken, 30 ticks/sec), and recharges fully in 150 ticks. With both upgrades, down time is 20/40 ticks, and recharge time is 90 ticks, which is actually significantly faster than before these tweaks. Said upgrade also buffs your super charge speed, meaning you can launch even more of those delicious giant boolits.

arp arp

edit: more arp



I've completed the level on Nightmare (with realistic quantities of cash and skillpoints (which is not shown in this screenshot)), so surely you can do it on Normal. :U

MORE IS BETTER

Although i've already received two offers for music making, i've yet to get any tracks from these people, and i'm of the perhaps silly mentality that variety is good. I do have a little backlog of suitable music tracks, but i'm running out quickly. If you can contribute something awesome, then by all means, i'd love to hear it!

In other news, Chartle has jumped on the programming wagon, and is making the second boss for you to enjoy. My current dilemma lies in whether i should release the version as it is now, or wait for Chartle to finish the boss, which would also require a fair bit of spriting from me.

Also, i've recently changed the spread shot to applying a really mean damage debuff rather than the previous "i lower your damage by 5 lol". Now, it permanently cuts your damage output in half. It's actually not as bad as it sounds, because even at a mere 7 damage it's still quite capable of destroying masses of foes. Past level 10, however, it won't be quite as overpowered. :U