Monday, May 12, 2008

Xeo3: Whats missing?.....

I was sitting here watching the teaser we did and trying to put my finger on what was missing. I notice a while back that it wasn't quite right and I finally figure out what makes it so easy to play... Badies dont shoot at you! Sure the turrets fire and all, but they are easy to avoid/shoot.... but if I add the ability for baddies to shoot at you, then I suspect it'll get a lot more interesting! This means that even when a formation passes you by you still have to dodge and be careful.

I was also trying to remember what I needed to do on the weapons front, and I need to add a weapons power bar! Currently both bars are used as a shield and just make it look pretty; but what I need to do now is change the one on the right to be a weapon power bar! The idea is that this will decrease over time (or per-shot, Im not sure) and you need coins to keep it charged. Now I was thinking on the way to work today that if its over 1/2 full, then getting a full coin bar as well means you get a new power up, while if its under 1/2 full, then you only top up the current weapons power! If the bar runs out, then you drop a weapon level and the Bar starts again.

This means you WILL have to get into the thick of things to just to keep your weapons powered up, or else you run the risk of powering down to a pea shooter again! (in theory)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

If your going to have a two stage power bar would it not be an idea to have each half coloured differently?

So that you can tell when you'll receive a power-up or a recharge.

Or perhaps the power bar could just change colour entirely (with an audio-able ping!) so you know its charge and your next coin will give you a power up.


Also have you considered adding some colour splits (rasters) to change the colour of the back ground, al-la the unfinished Armalyte 2.

Being the Plus 4 the software sprites will change colour as well but I don't see that as a problem. You could use it to your advantage with the traditional semi-submersed water level, with the bottom of the screen in blue (maybe with the controls going sluggish when submersed).

If you've ever had a blast on Last Resort on the Neo-Geo, you'll remember level two. Fantastic in the local arcade, 2 player at once.
------
Woz.

Anonymous said...

Yep! We've spculated around all these and more ;)

Nice to see you're back on XeO3, Mike! Have to say, I tried some waves, and must admit I'm not good at attack waved building :) Stuck with the background animations'stuff in standby, maybe I may assemble a decent 2nd level (in order to see how the foreground columns work), or I could afford the 2nd level boss...

Ah, don't forget to fix the plasma ball levels!

Mike said...

Yes, the idea is that I'll colour the lower 1/2 or 2/3rd's RED or something so you can see it clearly.

No, I dont want to do a colour split, I think that limits design too much. I guess you "could" do an optional one, but I'm not that keen.... I think once the source is released others can add that kind of thing if they like :)

Well, I've not done anything yet, I'm just trying to get back into things! But I hope to start actually doing stuff soon!