I managed to get a fair amount of work done on my 2D space shmup project this weekend (apart from DIY around the house and other bits and pieces that have been waiting to get done for ages!) So this blog post is update number five on my progress so far.

For anyone who has not seen the previous updates, I am working on a 2D space shooter /shmup/bullet hell game I’ve been developing with the help of the Unity2D engine. The original game I created is called “Cosmosis” and is out for iOS on the app store. However, that is an aging project I created a few years ago using cocos2d-iphone, and this is a brand new project, built from the ground up with better code, better graphics, and many more features and gameplay attributes 🙂

I wanted to also point out that I have been making as much of this game as editable and customisable to the user as possible! Everything that appears in a level, from the enemies, to their spawn patterns, the starfields and other space junk that fly around, plus all of their properties are editable to the user via XML! This means you can essentially create your own enemies/levels, and customise the way they look. My ultimate goal is going to be to include a level editor too. At the moment I am having issues with XML on mobile devices. i.e. Android and iOS. I’ll have to think of a way around this, as currently the only way I’ve been able to get the XML into the game to play on these devices is via the Internet – i.e. downloading it at runtime. Anyway, enough of that, and lets take a look at the new stuff:

Here are some of the new features that you may notice in the gameplay video I have:

Shield and shield hit effects + shield level that can recharge after taking a break from being hit

Missile defense node array that jump around shooting down incoming missiles

New enemies and animations on some – for example the pod-like enemies near the beginning of the video that swarm out, open a series of compartments up, and fire red plasma at the player

New enemy spawn patterns

Arc laser weapon

Swing arm mounted rocket weapon

Energy system to power missile defense nodes

Basic menu and some new GUI graphics

Built in console to issue commands in-game (the console is thanks to //github.com/mikelovesrobots/unity3d-console)

I hope this update is looking better than before! There is still lots more to do, and many more ideas I still have to implement into the core game. After that, it’ll be setting up various levels and an actual “game” to play. If you have any comments, feedback, suggestions or ideas, please feel free to drop them in a comment 🙂