[Archive] Project One v0.8.7 - working together news

Coop Mode and Difficulty System

The Coop Mode is finally reimplemented. You can now play Project One together or alone with two ships by switching from solo to coop on the upper left part of the main menu.

Some major characteristics of coop are:

• Enemy health and damage is increased by (currently) 50%
• Power items increase the weapon damage by 20% instead of 10%
• Score calculations are separated, but get compared and summarized at the end for highscores
• Game progress is made with both game types (solo and coop)
• You can collide and push each other away, which makes tight space more interesting (currently collision ranges are too low, but will be adjusted on the next update through the improvement of the collision detection)

Of course I also thought about an online coop, but regardless of the implementation effort, it's probably not possible. Even fast response times are too high for a shoot'em up, and a short lag would be an overkill. I'm also currently more interested in adding online highscores to the game with the Game Jolt API.

The other big change on this update is the Difficulty System.

The old system changed the attacks and behavior of all enemies and made them less complicated, but I don't like the idea to artificially down-grade and stretch the whole game, so I removed it completely. Every boss and enemy attacks now with full strength, and five difficulty levels are available which simply change the damage and game speed, including a Casual Difficulty, should it be too hard.

I also implemented a very short introduction to highlight the new system.

Some of the changes on this update where already available in a pre-version two weeks ago, including Game Jolt Trophies and some performance improvements.

v0.8.7 (2013-05-27)

• General
  • Implemented local coop
  • Implemented Boss 03-01 Stinga
  • Implemented Game Jolt API (currently trophies/achievements and sessions)
  • Increased the performance (faster outling effect, faster water effect, better inline programming, fixed memory arrays, more instancing, faster on 4:3 resolutions)
• Gameplay
  • Removed boss downgrading through difficulty, bosses are now always at full strength
  • Changed the difficulty system
  • Changed the health/armor of some bosses
  • Implemented a simple game introduction
  • Changed some rules of Classic Run (armor-item heals 50% (up from 25%), 2. boss gets +25% and 3. boss +50% armor)
  • Equipment
    • Weapons
      • Implemented new weapon Wave Mortar
• Menu
  • Added everything for a second player and coop gameplay
  • Credits are now in the Extra Menu and share it with the Game Jolt interface (can still change)
  • Improved the language loading
• Graphics
  • Improved the ground decals
  • Explosions move now with the background movement and create distortion
  • Second area has now an underwater environment with Spongebob physics (e.g. fire still burns), to make it more distinct
  • Added option the change the environment quality (Off, Light, Full)
  • Changed the post processing selection and strength
• Music and Sound
  • Added a couple of new CC music files
  • Added environment sounds (nature, water, wind)
• Bugfixes
  • Cursor is now visible outside of the game frame
  • Fixed a crash while closing the application on Linux
  • Fixed a major bug, where random video memory was erased

Version: 0.8.7 (2013-05-27)

Thank you
- Martin