Hello there Fellow Space Shooter enjoyers.

I have delivered a massive update to Astro Impact! De_Make. It's just a demo, but its playable, fun and intense. 

The stakes are high, we're talking about your first-born child and ... 

I'm just kidding.

The game has sort of a troubled development history. I don't even know where it all began.

Seriously. I lost my memory of a couple of months from October 24th, 2021, to February 27th, 2022. I remember nothing in between those dates. However, my computer has code and work (Sprites/Tile sets) dating back to Mid-February 2021. But anyways, that's a whole other story

The OG Tileset:

The Cloud backgrounds:

Oh yeah, I also have the stone age GDD too.

Yeah yeah, I know my handwriting is really good. If you look hard enough, you can read what's behind that page Hint: It's something I'm currently working on too :D

Anyways, after a few months, I started work on Astro Impact! DX in Unity. I was a Unity user since 2017.

Development was coming along nicely. But I reached a wall when my spaceship couldn't shoot, Like at all. I followed several tutorials, yet I couldn't shoot. I was sad to say the least. Being the budding game dev I was, I did what any other game dev would do, ask for help. 

I started another project, silly.

I started work on a Metroid Vania and reached another wall. My character kept toppling over. I asked the Unity2D subreddit for help and the most helpful one (not) was to Lower the Collision for the RigidBody2D. It worked well until I had to take some stairs then my character would topple over again. Thinking about it, the most logical solution was to freeze rotation on the Z-Axis.

Several projects down the line, Nokia Game Jam 2023 was a week away. I had no space on my SSD for another Unity project. I installed Godot and looked for a tutorial for a shmup. 

I had used Godot back in mid 2022 but I was using C#, and it was painful to get it running. Not to mention the Tutorial I was following was bad. I wasn't understanding anything.

I found one- and this-time round; I was going to use Godot as is. I installed 3.5 and followed the tutorial. 2 days later, THE SPACESHIP WAS SHOOTING. I couldn't believe it! had an actual game in my hands. I published the game for the game jam a few minutes before the deadline and went to sleep with the biggest smile. I had done it. In all the years of making projects, I had finally published a game. It was a Kusoge, but it was my Kusoge and I loved it!

Morning comes and I try installing my game from itch, it couldn't play because I didn't upload the .pck file. I was devastated so I uploaded the .exe and the .pck files in a google drive folder and posted the link in the comments so people could download and play it from there. 

Results come out and to anyone's surprise, I was 3rd last. I didn't mind, at all. I was just happy some people went out of their way to download and play it. Someone even enjoyed it!

I switched to Godot. All my (back then) projects were transferred from Unity to Godot. I haven't looked back ever since. Everything just works ™️

BACK TO WORK

After the jam was over, I went back and started working on the game based on the feedback I got from the jam. They were: 

1. The game was not fun.

2. There wasn't any sound.

3. There wasn't any damage feedback.

4. No UI to pause or start the game when the player died.

5. There was a filter that made everything in the game blurry.

I implemented the scoring system in the first day after the jam since it was what I was working on before submitting the game.

It's safe to say that I delivered on all of them in this update. My game didn't fit in the jam's constraints, but honestly, I just didn't care. Maybe next time.

UPDATE CHANGELOG

1. The game being fun is subjective, but when I and other play testers play the game, we find the game fun as it is now (Please indicate whether you find the game fun or not and why in the feedback form).

2. Sound was added. I used music from Astro Impact DX and made sound effects specifically for this game. The music isn't finished, and you can actually vote in the Google Feedback Form on what style I should make the music for the final game to be :D

3. Damage feedback: Whenever the player gets hurt, there are certain events that happen that help convey that the player is damaged. First, there is a shield (A circle forms around the player) and grants temporary invincibility for 2 seconds, then there is a sound effect that plays whenever the player takes damage and lastly, there is screen shake. I didn't go too aggressive with it as it can be distracting if overused.

4. User Interface was implemented. There is a main menu where you can access the help, credits and feedback sections. You can also Quit the game now! Revolutionary, right? In the game jam version, you had to Alt F4 to quit the game. There is also a pause menu to you know, pause the game.  You can quit to the main menu from there too. When the player dies, there is a panel that displays the score that you earned that session and highest score (Still needs work, I know) You can quit to the main menu or restart the level here.

5. The filter for all assets in the game was removed. The game is crisp now. Enjoy your crisp pixel art sprites straight from a 2003 feature phone, just like how you remember them.

6. Play testers enjoyed the game but the major complaint that popped up a lot was that the game was too easy. They were right. I added Homing Enemies that deal 2 hearts of damage. I also added homing Kamikaze enemies that can 1 hit you; They deal 3 hearts of damage. The missiles self-destruct after 10 seconds of being avoided. The Kamikaze Enemies don't self-destruct, you have to destroy them. The game was fun as the stakes were raised, not only do you have to avoid meteors and enemy bullets, but you also have to be WEAVE NATION CERTIFIED to be able to dodge the missiles and kamikaze enemies. 

7. To make the game fair, I added Power Ups. There is a shield power up that grants you 5 seconds of invulnerability. No enemy or object can damage you when its active. There is a health power up that restores 1 heart in your health bar. Max hearts you can have at once is 3. There is a base bomb as well as an ultimate bomb. The base bomb deals 10 damage but only travels in a straight line. They are perfect for meteors. You can carry 10 of these at once. The ultimate bomb is a line that clears the whole screen. I will configure the damage, so it clears the whole screen. It cannot fully destroy a certain meteor. But it one-shots everything else.

8. The HUD was touched up. At first it showed the health and score but now it accommodates the bomb counts as well (to be quite honest, bombs weren't in the original game jam game)

9. There is a help section in main menu. It just shows the controls (for now). I find that to be a neat feature :D

10. There is a transition from the main menu to the endless level. Small change, but I find it make the game feel more like a game.

FUTURE

Astro Impact! De_Make is far from done. Hopefully, I will publish the full game before the year ends. 

What I have in Store:

1. Story Mode (~20 Missions, Custom enemy patterns, different playstyles, different locations/Biomes, Mini Games)

2. Boss Rush Mode

3. Score and Time Attack Modes

4. Global Leaderboards

5. Achievements

6. Android and Linux versions

7. Cloud saves (If I publish on Play Store and or Steam)

Wish Me luck!

CONCLUSION

Thank you for taking the time to hear an old man rumbling about games from the prehistoric era I hope you find the game as much fun as I had making it. Make sure you fill out the feedback form so that I may use the feedback to make the final game a masterpiece!

SEE YOU, SPACE COWBOY