Meteoroids Devlog #2 – A New Spawner

I’ve been back in full swing for the past few days, to the point where Meteoroids should have a beta release shortly. Hooray! Meteoroids has been an interesting project. Over the past year, my lack of planning for what is, essentially, my first game (I’ve made others, but never released them), has led to a much longer development time that I’d anticipated, in addition to some severe coding headaches. However, I believe I’ve hit a milestone that is allowing for rapid completion: I actually legit love the game now.

Improving the Spawner

Over the weekend, I completely overhauled the enemySpawner. The new spawner makes for a much more fun and interesting playthrough. There are no lulls or dead spots in the constant onslaught of enemies, but level and item progression has been markedly improved. Rather than rely on a single point of data to trigger a spawn, or a certain amount of enemies to end a wave, there are now multiple levels of scaling in order to make the experience more personal to your gaming abilities. This should allow both hardcore gamers and your more casual crowd to jump right in and enjoy it on their own terms.

Raising the Level Cap

I’ve bumped up the number of weapon upgrades you can obtain from 3 to 99. The waveCounter is gone, replaced by a level system with end bosses. The bosses themselves have a few secrets built in, meaning you won’t know exactly how you have to kill them in order to progress to end game. I suspect that the majority of players will never see this end game, but if you do manage to kill every boss, the game is winnable. At the same time, it’s also infinite, you don’t have to go for the boss triggers at all – you can choose to play it as a console space shooter, or an infinite shooter. It’s totally up to you.

In addition, I’ve added a new mid-level set of challenges, including meteoroid showers, centapod attacks, and an asteroid monster onslaught. Depending on how you’re doing throughout the level, you may or may not see these mid-level events, which is unfortunate, because the added boost to your salvage points is nice.

Cleaning it Up

Lastly, we’re getting some new graphic and design elements that everyone should appreciate. When items are affordable, they now get a little shine animation so you don’t have to try to do math while dodging enemies. When you hit an enemy, you can now see the amount of damage it put off. You can turn that off in the options.

Sound also got an upgrade. There are now audio indicators for nearly everything, from a purchase sound to a raising melody when you first come onscreen and your hp and shields gauges are filling up.

Overall, the game is shaping up to be fun, and something I’m actually proud of. I can’t wait for you all to play it!