It’s been a while since the last update. I spent the months working on interesting prototypes and experimental installations, but now I finally have time again to come back to Catcher!

Since the last time, I picked up generative art to make interesting backgrounds. After a lot of experiments, I finally settled for a background that looks similar to the old one, but more interesting and with more dashes of color – and because it’s procedural, it will always look different.

I also visited the AMAZE Indie Festival in Berlin and got lots of great feedback that I used to improve this build.

Here is the changelist:

New procedural background

Made level transitions more fluid

Tweaked movement and net opening/closing

Replaced A-F rating with stars

Added a score malus for death

Added a particle mouse cursor ingame

Capped player ships at screen border

Improved “Sector Clear” screen

Improved rocket visibility

Improved level progression

Improved tutorial

Improved feedback

Fixed several bugs, including net collision problems with fast-moving enemies

You can download the current versions here – and if you do, please give leave me some feedback!

A few examples of the new background:

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Another thing that changed is that enemies now have appearing animations! Instead of just suddenly being there, they are generated out of particles using Particle Playground:

Next up: