Upgrades and Skills to Spice Up the Game!

A lot of new features are added to improve the gameplay experience rather than just having a linear, looping one. 

For starters, asteroids can now drop power-ups, which gives certain effects on players when collected. The current power-ups that are in game are:

• Shield: Provides a force field around the player that ignores incoming enemy attacks. The shield has its own hitbox. Thus, it can also bump into the asteroids.
• Magnet: Attracts all active loot drops for a short period of time.
• Super Speed: Enables the player ship to move at high speed for a certain period of time.
• Gun Charged: Increases all bullet damage by certain amount for a certain period of time.

All these power-ups have their own visual effects. The shield is a green force field; the super speed is a yellow lightning; the gun charged is red and orange lightning. As of this moment, there is no visual effect for the magnet yet. These power-ups' remaining durations are also displayed in the UI (beside the health bar). 

Speaking of UI, a new button is added for the in-game controls: the active skill button. The active skill button allows the player to use the currently activated skill from one of the three active skills that are currently live. As of now, there are only three active skills available. However, on future updates, expect for more to be released. 

• Shield: Provides a force field shield just like the power-up but has a fixed duration (faster than the default duration of the shield power-up).
• Magnet: Attracts all active loot drops just like the power-up but also has a fixed duration (faster than the default duration of the magnet power-up).
• Shockwave: Stuns all enemies on screen for 3 seconds.

After using the active skill, the button will undergo a cooldown of 35 - 60 seconds, depending on what active skill is currently active.

On top of all this, an in-game market system is also added to the game. In this marketplace, the player can upgrade the duration of power-ups and buy locked active skills using space gems. As of now, these two are the only things this marketplace can offer. However, on future updates, the player will then be able to buy more items, such as the ships, effects, maps, etc.