(Click or tap to enlarge)
There’s just too much new stuff in this week’s demo for an item-by-item list, but suffice it to say that the game feels different now.
Firstly, there is finally a failure state - i.e. you will “die” if your health meter runs out. This fundamentally changes the experience, because now there are actual stakes involved (i.e. the loss of the upgrades you’ve collected.)
Secondly, when you launch this demo, you’ll immediately be greeted by the sounds of a Magic Space Banjo - which will serve as a musical companion for the duration of your flight. At the time of writing, there are known issues with the music losing synchronization with the game, but there are also known solutions - which will be applied next week. It was a lot of fun to throw up a couple of microphones and record some new solo banjo music, and I’m planning to do a lot more of that in the weeks ahead.
The game’s sound design has also been retouched. Old sounds have been warmed up, many new sounds have been added, and the overall balance has been fine-tuned a bit.
Once death became a factor, it was apparent that the shields were quite inadequate. In the previous demo, the basic non-upgraded shields reduced damage from the back and sides by 50%. This was arguably better than nothing, but still allowed far too many scenarios where your drone would be destroyed without you even seeing a projectile.
As a result, I’ve installed new shields on your drone which completely eliminate damage from behind, and which also reduce damage from the sides by 85% (upgradable, in two levels, to 90% or 95%). This should allow you to focus on the threats in front of you, without allowing you to simply sit completely idle in a field of heavy fire.
The behavior of the saucers and their projectiles has also seen another round of revisions. Their speeds and movement patterns have been updated to work better with these shield changes.
There were many other little tweaks here and there, and there are many things which almost-but-not-quite made it into this release. Expect many more changes, big and small, next week.
As always, the download link is available from the Ko-Fi post.
(Archived gamedev post from 2026-01-30)
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