New gameplay footage available! A lot of progress again this week, there's a new title screen and menu layout, a new weapon, lots of new assets and new levels. Preparations for the alpha demo are almost finished as well!

Posted by M4347 on Sep 18th, 2015

Hello once again,

Since the last update I have been working on more level design and stages, level sets themed around a docks and weapon factory have been finished. There is a lot to talk about, but before I do please have a watch of the new gameplay footage below.

The New Levels



The Docks

One of the new level sets on show in the video is a stage based in a shipping yard or docks, this level set will again contain 5 levels including a boss round. The enemies currently on show are still from the original office level set, but will be updated to match the level theme by the time of the final game.

For this level set I opted to go with blue and yellow as a colour theme, which I think is quite distinctive and would match in with a lot of machines you might find around a shipyard. The actual idea of basing a level set around this theme comes from my love of a certain Dreamcast game which had you spend quite a lot of time in the docks, as a special nod to it I even created this asset to put in the game.





The dock levels are also the most densely packed levels in the game so far, they have the most individual items and it was a time consuming task to make sure they were placed in such a way that looked good, whist providing good paths for the action and combat to take place. The end result is a map that has a very different feel to the other levels as the docks are full of narrow bottlenecks and choke points to thin out enemies, but also full of dead ends and tight corners which the player will need to be wary of to avoid being surrounded. Below is an example of one of the stage layouts.





The weapons factory

Also seen in the video is a couple of sections from a new weapons factory theme set of levels that I have been working on. The idea of these levels is to try and give a more futuristic feel to things, which will also bring in a new character and weapon set to suit the level. They are currently in a playable state, however I am still tweaking them and would like to add more items into them. It's possible I may bring in some form of environmental hazards to the player as well.





As you can see a red colour scheme has been used for this level set, which has been done to give the feel of a dangerous environment. A big challenge that is presenting itself for these levels is currently creating the items to fill them, the screen above uses a lot of items from my previous levels, these will be changed for the final game. Below are some of the newer items designed for these levels.

The space station

In my last article I left you with a preview of one of my space station levels that was being designed, I am pleased to say that work has also continued on these and they are almost finished. Stages 1-3 have been completed, stage 4 and the boss level are over halfway done. This particular set of levels has been fun to design items for as to fill a hanger I got to design some spaceships, as pictured below.

This level also made me create and introduce the first gun of a new weapon set, it is a space blaster which deals high damage to the enemy and has a short recharge delay between each shot. To keep with the space theme and colours I decided to go with a nice purple beam effect from it when fired.





So far a handful of other items were created to fill a cargo bay stage in the level as well.

The title and menu screen

Up until this point I had been using a very basic series of grey and white buttons to act as a menu system, and the game had no background for a title screen. I am pleased now to have finished work on the title card and menu screen below. I tried a lot of time and test a lot of designs, in the end I feel this system with large 'Metro' style buttons works well for the type of game. Let me know your thoughts.

Work still to do and news on the alpha

I still have a lot to introduce into this game, new enemies and bosses are high on the list of things to add in. I am looking at various options to attack the player with projectiles, mainly turrets in the space stage. I am also toying with the idea of a graveyard level set featuring a zombie mode.

The big news though is that this week I have completed a list of what needs to be done to get some stages ready for releasing an alpha demo. There is a fair amount on the list, but I am aiming to have this ready for upload by the end of next week.

Since the games announcement I've received great support from the indie community, and I would like to thank everyone for that.

Please remember to follow me on here at my indiedb page and also on Twitter @IndieDevM, as well as YouTube for the latest video updates.

I look forward to returning with an alpha demo very soon.

Until next time!