Sporadic Status Update 2 - Dark Space 2!

Hello again, random followers who might be reading this!

After pulling Super Dark Space back into the lab and spending a lot of time iterating upon gameplay concepts and thinking about what would be fun to both make and play, I tore up the foundations of the project and restructured it into what is now Armored Arachnid (or Dark Space 2, if you prefer the subtitle). As I was continuing along my game development journey, I kept noticing that I felt happiest when I was planning out "small" games; by that, I mean games that don't have an overwhelming number of interacting systems or a massive scope. I always held onto this odd belief that the sequel to Dark Space 1 would have to be much bigger and grander, but I never felt satisfied with any of my visions for the game. Following a binge of simple, arcade-style games, I came to a realization... Why didn't I ever think of doing the same for Dark Space 2?

I immediately scrapped all of the dungeon exploration doohickey, transitioning the game into more of an arcade-style shooter, just like the prequel. At its core, the gameplay is quite simplistic; you can move around with keyboard controls and fire at enemies using the cursor. A preset wave of enemies will gradually infiltrate the arena, and defeating all of them will allow you to move on to the next screen, where the enemies become ever-so-slightly stronger. Armored Arachnid is still in an early state of development, and I'm hoping to add some features to expand upon this gameplay loop in the future. With my current experience and knowledge, though, I'm very confident that I will be able to deliver a worthy sequel to Dark Space 1; it might not be the super-deep sequel I originally imagined, but with tighter controls, more refined gameplay, and a vastly improved codebase, it sure does feel like one already!

As always, I truly appreciate you people who continue to keep up with my work! I've had a long-time itch to return to the Dark Space universe and do it justice with my current abilities, so I'm very excited to have finally found a working formula. If all goes well, I'm hopeful that a demo version of Armored Arachnid will be ready for everyone to try out someday!