Update #3 - Technical fixes and next area

These past few weeks have gone by fast. As game development is a hobby of mine I tend to work in bursts and then sometimes nothing happens for 2 or 3 weeks.

I fixed several common issues I was not aware of with the Godot engine. Instantiating particle emitters for the first time in a Godot game causes a stutter as the shader is compiled.  I did not see this issue when developing as it was not apparent on my main Linux machine. It is VERY apparent on Windows though.

So you do not want compile the shader when game is running. A common work around for this is to spawn use (and therefore) compile the needed shaders at startup. I'm doing this off-screen at the moment so you won't see it, but it is done on the title screen when the game first starts.

So the first area is kinda done for now.

With these technical issues solved, work has started on some other things. First, name entry and hi-score loading and saving is ready. The name entry method is like the one you know from the arcade's, with a stick method of selecting the letters and a time-out to avoid people hogging the cabinet after game over :)

On To Area 2

With these things sorted I've started work on the graphics for the second area.  This is a cave area of sorts, so I need (bigger) rocks to play around with.  Getting to make fun looking rocks with four colours is a challenge but also rewarding work.

This is the first pass and these are relative smalls rock, about the size of the player ship. For the big parts I need bigger rocks and I am just working on interesting shapes and textures.

I'm getting better at this as I go along. It's fun!

This area will also introduce a new enemy: the drunk kamikaze flying saucer. Sketches have been made and I'm happy. But first, lets' create some interesting caves with more flying challenge for the player.

See you next time!