Updates:
- Resolution
- Lighting System
- HUD
- Sprites
- Level 1
- Turrets
Resolution
When I started this project out, I set out for the resolution to be 640 x 480 scaled down further 320 x 240. I've now changed the resolution to 1920x1080 and it looks fantastic(scaled to 640x360 to keep the same feel as before), I've tested this out on a Galaxy S5 and it's looking sharp! On the computer as well, however my screen is 1280x800 so it scaled down but none the less, looks great.
Lighting System
This lighting system isn't exactly perfect, it has its minor bugs but over all it fits great with the game. This took me a bit to implement but I wanted something great to show off and here we are :)
Heads-Up Display
This is still a work in progress but so far I like where the HUD is, the yoyogames community recommended using icons or something a bit smaller that takes up less crucial screen space. However I haven't found that it effects the gameplay. So far we have Health, Ammunition, and Spec.Light as variables up there. Now you're probably thinking "what on earth is 'Spec.Light'" well this is my attempt at a flashlight, that appears on your mouse and will shine where ever you need. It'll be very limited so it isn't taking advantage of, it uses 5 points per activation(which is a few seconds).
Ammunition subtracts 1 point every time a laser is fired, it takes 5 points away when a missile is fired.
Health, so this will vary depending on what hurts you. 5 points are taken when shot with a basic enemy bullet. Turrets fire these repeatedly so if you're going against one you better pray there is a health station near :P. Health stations/terminals give you 25 points back. The starting amount of health is 50 points, but similar to Doom and Wolfenstein, you can break the barrier and hit 100(any higher and I felt you could be invincible, maybe I'll make it slowly degenerate like Doom/Quake/Wolfenstein if it's too high.
I also made add a FPS counter, the game's room speed is 60(60 FPS) currently. However soldier's seem to be taxing as the game get's a little lag until they're scenes are finished. I guess I'll have to optimize it better or use different code completely.
Sprites
In my earlier screenshots, I have sprites consisting of different views(third person,platformer,top-down). I wanted to recreate the old "style" but feedback from yoyogame's community said it was confusing and didn't fit right. So I recreated everything top-down and will stick to that. The next issue was scaling sprites which if you've seen one of my videos, I am very guilty of :P. So I am trying to make 16/32/64 sprites and scale them up to the same size. Pretty much they look just right.
Sadly the lighting system hates when I rotate objects(it recreates a shadow of the object that isn't rotated, maybe I can use image_angle to fix this?), so I've resorted to rotating sprites and making them in to objects. It's not the most efficient away(GM:S's physic engine dislikes it) but it works right now.
Levels
The original level, while I loved it, would take too much time to convert and make just right when I should be focusing on the game's code/objects/etc. So I decided to redo the first level into a ship setting, where you start in a medical bay. I probably will try recreating the second level in to the original one but for now that is what we have.
Enemies
It wouldn't be a game without a challenge, so I have created Turrets as the first enemy. They're basic and just fire red lasers repeatedly that sorta spread out(soldier's have the same spread effect). I will definitely add more enemies but so far that's the only challenge.
What's in mind for the future?
I hope to create a launcher for the next release, this way you guys can just click update instead of having to come here and replace the game over & over. Hopefully I can implement this :) along with a news feed of updates on the launcher. Similar to how Minecraft does it.
More enemies,story line, levels, objects and so on. Maybe even a GMS file for making your own maps that the game will allow you to implement :). I feel the best map editor would be one that is using the native program. In-Game map editors seem eh. The only other problem would be getting GMS which is a bit expensive. I'll try and figure it out.
A possible start to networking is also in mind. I feel the best enemy would be against another player so that's on the to-do list.
