Moros
This is a new level I'm working on. It also includes a simple water shader. Water is basically "out of bounds" at the moment. Maybe later I'll do something else with it.
Triangular particles
This was driving me nuts. Everything in the game was triangular, except for the particles, which were diamonds. Most particle systems assume particles are quads, so to make a triangle I'd have to use a texture. Well, I refuse to use textures in this game. LONG LIVE VECTOR GRAPHICS!
TL;DR: I wrote a custom particle system that creates triangles instead of quads. All is right in the world.
Movement cooldown skip
This is an experiment to enable high-level play. It works like an active reload system. The cursor flashes briefly and you have a chance to skip the cooldown if you aim quickly enough and nail the timing. It can be fun to chain a combo together and get a rhythm going.
Writing
In my last game, I tried to use branching dialogue to provide choices to the player. I wanted every choice to mean something. I also wanted to avoid one-sided conversations with lots of reading in between player choices. Unfortunately I ended up arbitrarily sprinkling choices into each conversation that amounted to "BE A JERK? (Y/N)"
The theory was, I would keep track of your level of jerkiness, and unlock different dialogue options accordingly. The reality is, I never did that, and anyway, simplistic morality systems aren't all that interesting.
Now I'm doing simple dialogue branches based on in-game actions. For example, when the player loses a match, Penelope consoles them before moving on with her normal conversation.
All that to say: the writing is moving forward. It's better than the last game. More interesting character traits, less pretentious drivel. But still a little bit of that.
NYU Playtest Thursday
I had the privilege of attending the playtest event at NYU Game Center on Thursday. Got to see Ian Snyder's new game. Didn't realize who it was until afterward.
I arrived late but did manage to playtest one game and have someone play mine. The game was not really their type, but they had a lot of useful insight. Looking forward to future events!
One nice thing about NYC is the steady stream of gamedev events. There's so much going on! I'm trying to take advantage of my time here as much as possible.
Tile Risers
As a side note, a mid-sized YouTuber picked up Tile Risers this week, bringing a sustained number of simultaneous players to the game for the first time. A few free game sites have also picked it up. Right now there are at least 10 people playing at any given time, which is enough to make it interesting. Check it out here!