7 APR 2020:

- New fighters! These were created in Blender by @another_blender_user.

- The game now has 3 functional enemy ships (fighter, bomber, cruiser). Just need to refine hitboxes, damage, image size, etc.

- Had more voice-over audio recorded last night.

- Added stats to the end of the game showing how many of each type of ship was shot down.

8 APR 2020:

- Added shields to the fighter ships. The shields get smaller as they absorb more hits.

- Cruisers now warp into action!

- Fixed an issue where the player ship wouldn't touch the top of the screen. Also fixed enemy spawn placement issues. Fixed another issue where player ship would explode at the top of the screen.

9 APR 2020:

- Added some frames of animation to show that the player's bullets were hitting the shield of the fighters.

- Currently tweaking the explosion effects and implementing some logic so that some shots will be misses.

10 APR 2020:

- Power-up update!
In previous versions (including the demo) the player could change the weapon by pressing the "C" button. Now, destroyed enemies drop icons that can change weapons for you!

11 APR 2020:

- New weapon: The Scrapcannon! All the orbital scrap that the player collects ultimately ends up becoming the ammunition for the best weapon in the game. 

12 APR 2020:

- Above GIF shows the icon-based weapon-swap mechanic. Seconds are indicated by dots and weapon type is indicated by the large letter. 

After shooting an enemy down, an icon appears. If collected in the first 5 seconds, one switches to the default single laser. If one waits for the R, they then have 3 seconds to switch to the rapid laser. (And if one waits still longer, they have 2 seconds to switch to the Scrapcannon). 

What I like about this design is that it prevents the player from having to press a button to change a weapon and also injects a little bit of strategy -- you can get any weapon you want, as long as you can get to it safely and are willing to wait a few seconds for it.

The icon vanishes forever after the last weapon icon cycles through . . . so you got to get it while it's still active! If you need to change weapons again you'll have to destroy something else to spawn another icon.

- Right now the game has 5 sound effects (created by @mariosello1) and some voice-over audio. I'm currently working on getting some music created for the game.

13 APR 2020:

- The rotating planet now moves down and off the screen slowly as the level progresses. As a result, I was able to cut down the game's file size from about 50MB  to 20MB and reduced load times from 10 seconds to 3 seconds.

- Enemies are now gradually introduced. The hard-to-kill Cruisers do not join the fight until all of the fighters or bombers have been shot down.

- Bombers fly horizontally below the Cruisers but above the player's default starting location. Helps prevent getting side-swiped.

- Slightly decreased the default SFX volume.

14 APR 2020:

- Redid the planet terrain texture and brightened the clouds. Terrain and clouds now rotate one degree at a time. I've done lots of little adjustments but I think I finally have the planet looking and behaving the way I'd like. 

16 APR 2020:

- Rapid laser and scrap cannon increase firing speed each time they're leveled up.

- I've been using Pyxel Edit, Paint and HeliosPaint at various times for certain graphics. Though some of these programs are pretty good, my artistic ability is lacking, even if I'm trying to make something as "simple" as a pixelated explosion. So now I'm using BlastFX for my explosions and already I can see improvements in appearance.

17 APR 2020:

- Most top-down shooters rely on patterned waves of enemies so I'm experimenting with giving a little bit of AI to the enemy ships. I'd like for them to react based on factors like how much damage they or another ship has sustained or what the player is doing. So far it's going okay, but I have lots of little bugs I have to work out.

18 APR 2020:

- The enemy AI is a little bit closer to how I'd like it and I have a better idea of what changes still need to be made. The bomber definitely needs some work. I'm thinking about having it come in from the top of the screen instead of the side.

- The explosions I made with BlastFX were too large (60x60 pixels or larger) so I reduced their size by half and adjusted their placement on the enemy ships.

- Mini-milestone: First demo had 45 views and 15  downloads. Second demo has 57 views and 17 downloads. Not as much as I'd like, but it's still progress. As the demos get better in quality I expect the counts will increase even more.

Speaking of which, if you're reading this devlog and thinking to yourself, "He should really do X or Y" feel free to comment on any features you'd like to see in the game or things that need changing. I've already implemented a few changes recommended from other players (screen adjustments, pause button, increased difficulty, etc).

19 APR 2020:

- Bomber now comes in at an angle from the upper-right corner of the screen and fires a larger pulsing projectile straight down at the player.

- Made some changes to the Title screen but not sure if I'm going to keep them or not. 

- Updated the player ship sprite  by using the Blender Cycles image instead of Eevee. Has a little more definition to it now.

20 APR 2020:

- Bomber shots now home in on the player -- thankfully they only stay active for a limited amount of time. 

- Further adjustments to the title screen.

- Fixed a bug where the player was crashing against the top of the screen.

New demo out 27 April !

22 APR 2020:

- Scrapped the idea of enemy ships stealing power-up icons. Enemy ships snag the power-ups too quickly meaning the player would rarely get to use different weapons. Instead, enemy ships will get upgraded based on other conditions.

If there's one thing I've learned in this gamedev journey, it's that there are no perfect plans on paper. You could spend a week drafting up "the way it's going to be" and then three weeks into development you realize that some of those ideas you had for your game need to be scrapped. Maybe they increase loading times too much, maybe they're too hard to code, or maybe feedback from testers is making you rethink things. 

- Simplified some of the game logic. Previously I had it where both the enemy and player ships could have missed shots. Though it adds some "realism" to the game, I think it's more likely to be frustrating. For the player, any shots that graze an enemy will deal normal damage and any shots that hit the central "hitbox" will deal extra damage.

- Adjusted the layers of the enemy ships. Larger cruisers will always be in the background, medium-sized ships will be in the middle-ground and even smaller ships will be in the foreground. This ensures that no ships can hide behind another.