I managed to get Stage 6 to a playable state after much creative and motivational struggle. This is a “final exam” stage featuring much harder encounters with elements from all of the previous stages.
The heroine, Amelia (Amy), has returned to the capital of her father’s empire, where she will meet some of his cruelest and deadliest troops, but also some unexpected support.
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Highlights
- There is one new normal enemy, the assassin. They run fast, they throw triple daggers (often at the flanks and rear), and they don’t like traitors:
- All other normal enemies are slightly upgraded.
- The fire bomber has brought two beastgirls to his barbecue. If Amy stops him, more rebel humans can help her save the girls.
- Amy can bomb boats right after sinking them in the canal for extra destructive fun.
- The bishop hides in his cathedral and sends his orbs to spin spirals of bullets around Amy.
- On the way to the cemetery Amy must beware of lance charges from behind as well as head-on.
- The elite guards are the least frightening things in the cemetery. Amy can avoid the dead lying in wait, but when their patience runs out…
- The deranged undertaker reanimates Amy’s mother, Queen Alexandra. He commands the queen to rain corrosive liquid death while he barrages Amy with soul explosions, the first attack that Amy's bomb cannot block. Amy has no choice but to destroy her mother's body to free her.
Other Changes
- Gameplay
- Amy now charges some extra bomb energy for doing touch damage to enemies.
- More exciting teammate movement during a bomb. They will keep moving instead of staying centered on one enemy all the time.
- Tutorial infantrymen will now fire at you so you can practice some bullet dodging. You can get hit and die but you will not lose or gain any resources (lives, bomb energy, partners, captives).
- Extra lives are now given at the first 2 million points and every 3 million thereafter.
- If you lose a life, your first four teammates die with you.
- UX
- Short dialogue with each boss before fighting.
- You can now choose whether your controller has Xbox, PlayStation, or Nintendo buttons so the game will refer to them properly.
- Game pauses if game window loses focus.
- Added bounce to bonus point indicators for personality.
- You can now see your maximum number of bombs at all times.
- The instructions to the Inebriator minigame now reflect your control configuration.
- Fixed player teleporting after being computer-controlled, if the mouse or touchscreen moved during that time.
- Fixed partners flying offscreen for a while when rapidly tapping secondary fire button.
- Fixed ability to pause while the black curtain was opening or closing. Avoids a black screen from pausing with the curtain fully closed.
- Rewrote tutorial instructions in proper English.
- Level
- Fewer catapults in Stage 1.
- Redone Stage 2. Enemies in the fields are more mobile and flanky. The midboss can come down from his attic to fight in close range. Some pike rushes, sneaky archers and trapped monstergirls in the village.
- Minor rebalancing of Stages 3 and 4.
- In stage 4 filled in some blank space before the de-monsterization chamber. Added a little reference to CAVE at the start.
- Stage 5 boss a little easier. One attack now fires around the player for area denial instead of directly at her.
- Audio
- Improved music quality using MAME’s YM2612 sound chip emulation. (currently in Windows only)
- Lot of new music from RigidatoMS, my musician. Here is the entire soundtrack so far.
- Graphics
- NPC red damage tint pulses so their visibility isn’t compromised.
- Enemies indicate taking cover by turning dark (again for visibility) instead of transparent.
- Improved stunned/drunk blur shader. Made it compatible with Raspberry Pi and other GPUs with reduced shader features.
A preview of the upcoming cover art by chesisbest Instagram.com Amy’s face is the new application icon.
