Projects – Zesix

Category: Projects

August 21, 2018

Twenty Six

Two years ago, I wrote Twenty Four. I didn’t write a Twenty Five because much of last year was a continuation. Now, two years later, I’m ready to give an update on my life, my feelings, and my mindset.

Cooking & 3D Modeling

These are the skills I primarily focused on between 2016 – 2018.

I’ve made progress on them to where I feel comfortable saying “I can cook” and “I can do hard surface modeling.” As someone who tends to generalize rather than specialize, I’ve drawn my lines – I’ve reached expertise levels where I’m willing to stop and say this is good enough for me. The rabbit hole for any hobby is deep and I’m not intending to make either of these primary passions right now. That doesn’t mean I’m not interested in learning more about them, it just means I won’t pursue them as eagerly. Achieving something in life requires a developed passion for the struggle, not the reward. Professional chefs savor the prep time and the nuances of nailing a specific flavor or taste. Right now I just want to make meals that taste good. 3D modelers enjoy the process of UV unwrapping, texturing, painting, and baking. I don’t need finely crafted details, I just want to make basic models for testing video game ideas.

However, there are some creations I’m proud of – see them below.

Delicious Creations

Curried Catfish & Coconut Rice

Korean Style Beef Rice Bowl.

Moroccan Chicken Rice Bowl.

There are many others in my favorites-to-remake list, but I have the fondest memories of the above.

Hard Surface Modeling

Hexagon unit.

Robotic Orb – retopology.

Propeller Plane.

At this point, I believe I have a decent understanding of good topology. I also have practice making modular pieces for level design, but I got too frustrated with the texturing process in Blender to bring that project to a close. I’ve read few serious modelers do texturing in Blender and instead use Substance, but learning a new tool isn’t something I want to commit to right now. If I had to describe my current skills, I’d say I can model modular hard surface placeholders.

Exercise & Social League Sports

I don’t do at-home workouts anymore besides using my apartment gym and pool once a week each. One of my goals this year is to improve my network and be more social so I’ve made my exercise regimen more outgoing: I’ve signed up for kickball, volleyball, and bowling leagues. I’ve already played kickball for two years now, so volleyball and bowling are the new activities I’m looking forward to.

One staple of league sports is going to the bar afterward to drink and socialize. I’m an INTJ who doesn’t like alcohol – I don’t get the rush from it others do – so I often feel disconnected. Going to the bar isn’t as nerve-wracking as it used to be, but I feel alone when I’m there. Everyone else seems to be drinking and having a good time so I feel as if no one understands what it’s like for an introvert. However, dissociation paired with self-assurance is an interesting combination. I push myself to walk around and talk to other teams even when I don’t know any of them. It’s nerve-wracking to put myself out there like this, but it’s resulted in free games (substitutions for other teams), business cards, impromptu weekend practices, and dates with women. I find stretching my comfort zone to usually be worth it in the end.

As for game events, I find myself empathizing with others who seem nervous or unsure. I’m anti-clique-y, so whenever I see someone who doesn’t fit in, I make an effort to be friends with them. A few years ago I realized some of my strongest connections stem from a mutual understanding of being ‘different’ with another, even if that person shares next to zero interests of mine.

I sign up every season as a free agent. Teammates in Austin embrace my eccentricity quickly. But I can’t shake the feeling players accept me because I perform well in the sport and not because I’m my own person. I also admit I’ve been distrustful and unfair to some in the league (Vanessa if you’re reading this, this is for you), but I wonder what people would think if I was just average.

I need legwear that can take a beating from fast sliding. Jeans work very well.

As for playing, I do my best to utilize my strengths. My playstyle is to bunt and rely on speed to close bases, sliding to stop when necessary. My sliding technique is tuned for braking: I turn sideways, then drop and jam my left knee into the sand while bracing my right leg for the base impact. Sometimes the collision is faster than I like, but I always stretch before games. Jeans hold up for this technique better than any other legwear I’ve found, but wearing them causes me to stand out. I’ve become famous for being the “jeans” guy. I daresay I even enjoy the attention of the nickname now. I hear I’m also on snapchat even though I don’t have an account. Am I a meme?

Singing

I’ve been told my entire life I have a great voice, butÂ I never expected singing to be one of my most challenging endeavors. I’m often too nervous to do it in front of others because I’m self-conscious of how I sound. My tessitura isn’t wide yet, so I flip into falsetto more than I like. I practice for ~45 minutes every other evening. The most frustrating part of singing is that the technique is not something I can solve – my vocal chords need consistent practice over time to expand and come together. There’s no way out but through, and I’m the personality type that despises being told there’s only one way to acquire a skill haha.

I’m currently taking lessons through Ramsey Voice. I highly recommend him!

My vocal lesson schedule has been inconsistent due to unexpected life events. The fact that I’m working on a video game means my budget is tight, so when major things go wrong (like my motherboard dying a few weeks ago), I have to make cuts for that month. Realistically, I intend to stick with singing for at least the next two years. It’s mostly a matter of time.

I wish I had a YouTube video of me singing that I could insert here, but I do not yet feel adequate enough to make a recording.

Style

My stylist stopped doing hair earlier this year. It took me a few months of searching and trying new stylists to find one I like. Nowadays I happily see Jill at Bex & Co – she nails the asymmetrical hairstyle just right, and Kate at Spoleti Salon does a great job with highlights!

Short on one side, layered and swept across the other.

I also donated most of my clothes to Austin State Hospital earlier this year. I’m not a minimalist, but I like some of their philosophies. People who have more things are generally unhappier than those with less, so if there are clothes I never want to wear, why keep them?

(Sorry mom, those polo shirts you bought me had to go. I never liked the Asian golfer look.)

My wardrobe consists of comfy and stylish tees, and stylish button-downs. I prefer a style that is unique but doesn’t stand out, the kind that makes people take a second glance at you if they happen to notice you in the first place.

Dating in Texas

Austin has a near-equal gender ratio, making it a great city for dating. Like most people, I’m looking for bothÂ chemistry and compatibility.

My dates in the past year have given me insights into the kinds of people I have chemistry with. I play in social sports but have never felt a strong connection with a woman over athletics or talking over a drink so it’s not an avenue I primarily pursue anymore. Deep down I am an introverted nerd fascinated with worlds, ideas, and psychological concepts. I still read fiction books. My ideal first date is walking and talking about stories, TV shows / anime, video games, and movies at the park. I want to relate to a girl in ways that stimulate the mind. My second preference is a healthy lifestyle and third is open-mindedness toward trying (or re-trying) new things.

eHarmony is my preferred online dating site. Most of the user base is female, the inability to search members means women actually read messages since their inboxes aren’t exploding, and the sign-up process weeds out most who aren’t ready to be wife material.

I’m taking a reverse-engineering strategy to dating. The majority of women who fit my preferences aren’t attending social activities like parties, clubs, and networking mixers. Most of them only go out with the accompaniment of close friends. They are self-described ‘hopeless romantics’ whose presence is primarily online. Unfortunately, I’m an independent introvert who often goes out and does things alone, so it’s difficult to get non-selfies of me in my element to produce a strong online profile. I’m considering hiring a photographer for a day to take pictures of me at my favorite places. Either that, or grabbing a friend who is good with Instagram.

Crazy Rich Asians

Go see this movie. It’s a rom-com with an Asian cast that features many East-versus-West cultural clashes not often explored in the genre. It’s especially relatable for me because of Rachel Chu’s experience in the movie.

I’ve never met my biological father, nor do I have memories of him. Similar to Rachel’s mother, my parents divorced when I was young. My mom eventually married my stepfather and we moved to America. My mom and I are the only Asians in a predominantly Caucasian family here. Most of my family is very welcoming, but it hasn’t always felt that way in the past.

The next rom-com I’m looking forward to is A Star Is Born. Lady Gaga’s character says a line that hits me right in the feels:

Almost every single person has told me they like the way I sounded, but that they didn’t like the way I look.

I can’t relate specifically, but that line speaks to me. Check out the trailer if you haven’t!

Career & Personal Growth

I’m ready to leave GM IT. It’s a company that offers great starting pay and benefits but has definite growing pains. The most important skill I’ve learned here is how to operate within a corporate environment. What concerns me is the rate at which I am learning. Since we don’t use cutting edge technologies, I believe every year here is sapping my career growth. I speak with a new LinkedIn recruiter once a week, and there are companies in Austin using the latest tech without the restrictions of bureaucratic red tape. My career is still young and I want to learn as much as I can while I don’t have the commitments of a family. I’m looking to hop to a leaner company next.

The main factor keeping me here is the 401k company match that vests after 3 years. I have 9 months left.

One statistical concept I am cognizant of isÂ regression to the mean, which is the idea that over time we start to become more and more like the average in our environment. Most people do their jobs and go home. I don’t want to ever stop growing. Last year, I switched from DevOps to Front-End after learning the basics of the Angular framework in my spare time. Unfortunately, the app we’re making at work is for internal use, so I’ve been developing my own at home to show potential employers (and because I love webdev).

Sizzle

Work-in-progress as of 08/21/2018. Recipe images are placeholders.

It’s a recipe management web app with complementary shopping list feature. The name Sizzle is temporary. I started this project after realizing I often remake Blue Apron recipes using different ingredients and wanted an easy way to access my modified recipes anywhere.

Tech stack:

Angular 6
Bootstrap 4
Google Firestore / Google Compute Engine

SEO takes a hit for being a single-page application, but I intend to learn about server-side rendering (Angular Universal) to rectify this.

Zems

I’ve been producing an online card game since 2014. The startup ran out of funding in 2016 but I do what I can to keep it alive. I won’t describe the game here – watch the trailer instead.

I started the project because I believed the world deserved a systemic online card game. A systemic game is one where almost everything matters. For example, the weather isn’t just a visual effect, it affects gameplay. Elevation matters. If your character has traits, those matter too – for example, a dark wizard would have difficulty casting spells on holy ground. Basically, in a systemic game, internal systems are coded to interact with each other.Â Zems combines the online collectible card game genre with systemic tactical gameplay.

There still doesn’t yet exist a systemic online card game. I feel it’s up to me to launch one, like one of my life missions. I intend to see the project through, even if I have to maintain a running expense after launch to keep servers running. I’m aware that may seem illogical, but that’s how much Zems means to me. Make no mistake, I do intend to monetize it, and it will take some trial and error to get right.

Am I happy with the progress in the years after we ran out of funding? No. We haven’t held a public showing since 2015. The scope has expanded since then to incorporate well-received elements from recent games. We’re also working on a new environment:

Work in progress as of 08/21/2018. Many objects are placeholders.

Unlike my hobbies, I haven’t drawn many lines on the scope of this game. I evaluate new ideas critically, and while I’ve cut features in the backlog, the truth remains that the project has less funding, less manpower, and yet more requirements than when the team had both of the former. Much of the work that has taken place in the last year has been a re-architecture of internal systems to allow for the increased scope. However, the timeline for release, which was already uncertain, has become even more distant.

It’s possible I need to compromise on what I think is currently acceptable for a release. My plans right now may be unrealistic. But even if we need to make cuts, I am confident the game will launch to a level of quality the team will be proud of. The future looks exciting.

August 24, 2013

Cohack – A Reimagination of Spybot: The Nightfall Incident

In my last post I discussed my experiences in LD26, gave a nudge to Walk Softly (a continuation of our Ludum Dare game), and introduced my latest project – creating a modern reimagination of the popular Shockwave game Spybot: The Nightfall Incident. In this post, I intend to expand on the last part, as well as provide some screenshots of the current progress so far.

This Is Not The First

The two main reasons why I decided to recreate Spybot: The Nightfall Incident (note, however, that this is not an exact recreation) are because of its popularity as a Shockwave game and because I liked playing it. In fact, it is one of the highest rated Shockwave games on Jayisgames, an online arcade portal and is still fun to play today. If you have never played it, I highly recommend downloading Shockwave and giving it a try.

Indie game developers get a lot of inspiration from older games they have played that they enjoyed. When searching for ideas on what to work on next (yes, ideas can be hard sometimes), we often look to the games we enjoyed, find a few flaws or aspects that could be improved, then start working on ‘reimagining’ the older game. These reimaginations are often called spiritual successors and include the general feel of the previous game but incorporate a different story/setting and add elements to make the game more modern. BioShock being a spiritual successor to System Shock 2, and Assassins Creed being a spiritual successor to Prince of Persia are two good examples of this in mainstream gaming.

The idea of a spiritual successor to Spybot: The Nightfall Incident is something I have toyed with in my mind for quite some time, and I’m not the first to try to do this. A quick YouTube search pulls up a work-in-progress of ApparentEtch’s port to iOS, which at this time of writing is over 2 years old, meaning it is likely vaporware (digitally nonexistent) by now. A Google search pulls up a port of the game to Java, with added mechanics and a different story. However, just like ApparentEtch’s port, the last update to the Java port is over 2 years ago, meaning the project is likely abandoned.

I am unaware of the reasons behind both projects being dead. It seems like ApparentEtch wanted to make an exact copy of the game and port to iOS, which brings up legal issues and requires approving from Lego. An exact copy is never something you can pull off nowadays, and if you’re going to put work into a project then you’re best off making a spiritual successor so your work actually becomes your game. Stravant (author of the Java port) seems to have just gotten tired of the project (game developers call this ‘burnout’), or had to quit for personal reasons. My goal is to succeed where they have failed, and see this project to the end.

The Prototype

Almost every indie game nowadays starts with a prototype of the gameplay. This is because the story and the media do not matter as much if the gameplay itself is uninteresting, so we work on getting this aspect solidified before adding in the polish. Many mainstream game developers still prefer a top-down approach, and for companies with great designers (believe me, game design is a hard job to do well), this approach can still work. Still, there are some very famous disasters, with the most recent one being Final Fantasy XIII, a game praised for graphics but criticized on almost every other aspect from poor level design to poor story development. By developing a prototype first, developers who are not very skilled in design (such as myself) can slowly craft a game that works out its kinks. For CoHack, my first goal is to create a working prototype of the battle system, and that is what I am going to showcase in this post.

Battles in Spybot: The Nightfall Incident

This is what battles look like in Spybot: The Nightfall Incident

This is what the player sees during a battle in Spybot: The Nightfall Incident. I’m including this image here for comparison.

The following pictures will showcase what my prototype looks like.

Start of The Battle

Right now, the prototype starts by creating 3 spawn points for the player and computer, then generated a random grid. My goal is to create a prototype that would offer a slightly different experience for the player each time, and if I ever add multiplayer to the game then random grid generation could be a useful feature.

The entire game right now is touch-operated, meaning everything is currently designed to work with iOS and Android devices. I personally test the prototype on my iPad to ensure it maintains a solid framerate. The game has mouse fallback, so if your device doesn’t have touch input (such as PC), you can use the mouse to ‘simulate’ a touch.

Player Spawning

The highlighting of the spawn point in the image is rather faint, but if you take a look at the full resolution image, you should be able to see which spawning point is currently selected.

With the UI in CoHack, I’ve decided to deviate from the placement the UI had in Spybot: The Nightfall Incident and move it to the bottom. I believe the UI in the Shockwave is awkwardly placed on the left, and that a bottom UI is more reminiscent of modern strategy games (Command & Conquer, Might and Magic, etc.). In addition, I’ve split the UI into three sections – a left section that shows the player information about the currently selected object, a middle section that gives the player options based on the selected object, and a right section for displaying crucial in-game information such as victory conditions and other special conditions such as showing the player how many turns they have left to win. This right section is not being used at this time of writing.

Computer Spawning

After the player has finished spawning, a notification appears and then the computer spawns its programs. The computer spawning happens quite quickly because my intention is to minimize the amount of time the computer spends on its turn while still making its actions recognizable and understandable to the player.

Player Turn

This is the aspect of the prototype I am currently working on. Player object movement is working but currently not to a polished state. I am working on cleaning up program movement before I go on to add other parts of the player turn, such as combat. For now, each player object only has the ‘No Action’ option after it has expired its maximum number of moves that turn.

Next Steps

After cleaning up the small (but noticeable) issues in player object movement, I will move on to add computer program movement and basic AI. Computer behavior is one of the most challenging parts of development, and this is why many games are often criticized for terrible AI. I will try my best to eventually create an AI that is smarter than the behaviors used in Spybot: The Nightfall Incident, but I cannot guarantee that the prototype will actually feature such improvements as my main goal is to create a working prototype for public display.

The very last thing I will likely do for the prototype is find a sci-fi/computer font to use. If you know of any good ones, please let me know!

July 30, 2013

NG Game Jam Results, Walk Softly, and A New Strategy Board Game

NG Game Jam Results for Icarus – Wave Attack

It didn’t place. You can view the results here: http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1340180

The first place winning entry, Magnetized, is a very unique concept and a great game. I don’t feel disappointed about the competition because such a great entry took the contest. However, the competition felt very poorly run in my opinion, and I will state my two main reasons below:

Game results were based on community votes, and even though this was supposed to be a competition to develop games for mobile, the majority of players who voted on my game played on a computer and gave feedback that pertained to keyboard controls. While my game doesn’t have the greatest performance on mobile, the feedback I received is a clear indication that the competition’s intended judging process did not match the final results.
Community votes are skewed. Maybe I got the bad end of the lot, but I received many “zero star” votes from what seems like 8-10 year old kids who happen to be members of the site. Maybe every entry got votes like these, but the fact that NG has an abundance of these kids of people makes me not want to submit any future apps there, not even for feedback.

Overall, I learned a lot about making my entry. There wasn’t too much pressure to finish because I had planned everything in advance and had it ready to go a few days before the deadline. The most frustrating aspect of the game was developing multitouch controls.

The current state of the game is slightly beyond the entry. I’ve done some work on creating a cool title screen, but there’s a lot of revisions to be made to polish it. I’ve actually broken the ability to play the actual game with the addition of the new title screen, and this is something I will address if/when I return to this project in the future. For now, you can see the title screen here: https://zesix.com/html5/IcarusTest

You can play the game jam submission here: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/616172

Ludum Dare 26 Jam

Yes, I participated. I teamed up with Tobye Ryan (developer) and Lorne Colt (artist) to produce a barely-functional puzzle-solving noir game, although I will admit Tobye and Lorne did most of the work because they are both far more experienced than I am. I’m not sure how well we did in the jam, but honestly I don’t care. The very fact that we were able to start from nothing and submit something somewhat functional within 72 hours is an achievement within itself. I’m not sure I will participate in the next LD Jam at this moment, but it definitely was a great learning experience.

In May my house got hit by the EF5 tornado that swept through Oklahoma, so I’ve disappeared off the radar since then. Tobye and Lorne continued to work on the project after LD26, and they’ve set up a website for the game-to-be here: http://www.walksoftlygame.com/

A New Project

A few months ago (before the May tornado), I shared the sad truth about the Zems project on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Zemsai/posts/515115375202361. Besides the fact that a tornado has hit my house, things haven’t changed. I won’t be picking up the Zems project for the rest of this year, and instead I’ll be slowly diving into a new project that intends to be a modern reimagination of a strategy game I played in Elementary School called Spybotics: The Nightfall Incident. It’s a very well-crafted game despite its age, and if you have the Shockwave Player (http://get.adobe.com/shockwave/) installed on your computer, you can play it here: http://pandagames.biz/Strategy/Spybotics.html

I’ve done some Internet searches and apparently I’m not the only one who is interested in modernizing this game concept. I’ll post updates to the project as they happen and try to have a basic playable demo within the next few months. Stay tuned!

April 20, 2013

Icarus Game Jam Submission Almost Ready

The game jam submission of Icarus is near finished. I’m calling this submission “Icarus – Wave Attack” in order to avoid confusion later on.

Play the latest version here!

Changes since last update

There have been a lot of improvements since the last update, most notably touch-based controls that will allow the game to be played on mobile.

Bugfix: Explosion sound still plays when sound is turned off.
Highscores show only after the game is over.
Replaced graphical assets with new ones from the artist.
Ship thrusters now display when ship is slowing down.
Modified keyboard controls to allow reverse acceleration.
Added salvage system that will allow the player to collect debris from destroyed enemy ships. Once a certain number of salvage is acquired, the ship upgrades to a better version.
Moved power-ups spawns from enemies to asteroids because enemies now spawn debris when destroyed. This also gives the player a reason to destroy the asteroids.
Added a salvage sound effect that plays when the player salvages debris.
Added a power-up sound effect that plays when the player collects a power-up.
Added touch controls to make the game a dual-stick shooter on touch-based devices.
Enemy AI is completely redone. Instead of just going after the player, the AI ships will now occasionally fire on asteroids if they are close. They will also try to ‘strafe’ around the player instead of mindlessly chasing.
Lessened the chance for enemies to spawn on top of asteroids during the beginning of a wave, which immediately destroyed the enemy and the asteroid.
Set a maximum enemy and asteroid count to 8. Beyond wave 8, only 8 asteroids will spawn and additional enemies will spawn if the current number of enemies on-screen is less than 8.
Modified splash screen to accommodate touch and keyboard users.
Changed ‘Enemies Remaining’ counter to ‘Next Upgrade’ counter that tells the player how many salvages are left until the next upgrade.

The To-Do list for the final release will depend on the feedback I receive for the current version. I have finals coming up soon, so there’s not much more time I can spend on this. After school is over, I intend to fully dive into developing the full game with a story and more ships.

April 7, 2013

04/07/2013 Update on the Space Game – Now Called Icarus

I’ve finally come up with a name for the space game: Icarus. Icarus was the son of Daedalus in Greek mythology who dared to fly too close to the sun. The name itself doesn’t bear any meaning right now, but later on it will make more sense so just stick with it for now.

You can play the latest version of the game here. Note that it’s not the same link as the previous two blog posts!

Game Updates

There have been a plethora of game updates, even though the game doesn’t seem to have changed much when you play it.

Bugfix: Player ship no longer has continuous movement after a collision. I’m not entirely sure why this happened, but it should be fixed now.
Enemy ships are always moving. Previously, enemy ships that were calculating AI pathfinding remained immobile and fired randomly. Now they will move as the AI is working.
Asteroid chunks now fly away from the object that hit the original asteroid. In other words, whenever you shoot an asteroid, the chunks fly away from your bullet, whereas previously they flew off in random directions. This update also works if your player ship or an enemy ship collides with an asteroid.
Health power-ups spawn 2% more often and only after an enemy ship is destroyed.
Enemy ships move at variable speeds. This might still need some tweaking, as they still bunch up and move like a ‘hive mind’ at times.
Physics has been overhauled, meaning enemy ships now “bounce” from collisions.
Starfield scrolling occurs in direction opposite to player movement. Due to the game taking place in a fixed window, I may remove this feature.
Enemy health reduced from 5 to 4. A number of people complained the enemy ships took too long to destroy.
Player ship is now more responsive. The ship will no longer ‘drift’ after an acceleration, and ship turning also speeds up as the left or right arrow keys are held down (up to a max turning speed).
Gameplay audio is now randomized across three Clearside songs. Many thanks to them for allowing me to use their music.
A sound will now play when the player ship is shot by an enemy.
A sound will not play when an enemy ship is shot by the player.

Graphics Preview

I’m still working with the artist on the final art assets for the game jam, but for now here is a preview.

The Near Future

Most of what I want to accomplish for the game jam has been implemented. For now, I am waiting on the artist to finish the art assets.

Replace placeholder artwork with the final artwork.
Implement touch-based controls.
Enemy ships leave debris behind after destruction.
Player ship can pick up debris and will gain bonuses as more debris is picked up over time.
Add shield power-up.

I have also gotten in touch with some sound artists who have expressed interest in contributing to the project, but haven’t really heard back from many of them so I am uncertain as to whether there will be any new sound assets when I submit to the game jam.

March 22, 2013

03/22/2013 Space Game Update

This week has been full of progress, although it may not seem like much when you play the current version of the game.

The sound designer, Nick Vecellio, has sent me some sound samples and I have integrated many of them into the game. I’m still not sure how I like them in-game and I have already changed out a few for some other sounds I found online. I also found a decent background song to play during the waves, so that should help the ‘mood’ of the game. The graphic artist says he’s swamped with work and will get me some concepts on Sunday. I’m looking forward to that, because right now the main thing I hate about this game is the placeholder artwork – I’ve seen way too much of it in all my playtests!

Bugfixes

I’ll start with these, since they are (in my opinion) the most important. The first and most major bug the game had was enemy ships spawning off the screen. These ships would fire at you and you could not hit them if you fired back. They were practically unkillable because they existed outside the screen, and your ship could not leave the screen because it would wrap around to the other side.

The second bug dealt with player shielding, which for some odd reason would not drop below 1%. I’m not sure when this bug surfaced, but somewhere something went wrong in one of my weekly updates and people reported that the game was too easy because you could just hold down the shield key and never die. This has since been fixed.

Gameplay Additions and Changes

Most of these changes are to make the smoothness of the gameplay experience better.

All sounds are now disabled when the game is over. This stops the awkward issue where sounds continue to play after you have died.
Player ship flashes and is invincible upon asteroid collision. Previously, when the player ship collided with an asteroid, there was a chance the player ship would die due to the asteroid splitting into smaller chunks, creating several more instantaneous collisions in the game. Now, whenever the player collides with an asteroid, the ship will flash for a brief second and be invulnerable.
Default ‘hiscores’ are now replaced with more realistic ones. I didn’t think this would be an issue while the game was still in development, but people were wondering how to achieve a score of 1000 when most struggled to get to 100. I have since changed the hiscores to be more reasonable, even though they still don’t matter right now because the game is incomplete.
Enemy ships have varying fire rates. Previously, all enemy ships fired at the same rate, but now they fire at different times, making each seem more ‘unique’.
Enemy ships and asteroids now spawn at the sides of the screen. This was mentioned on my to-do list from last week’s post, and this has since been implemented.

To-Do List

If the graphics artist sends me sprites this coming week, I will do my best to include them.

Stop player ship from sometimes having unbreakable momentum. Right now, the player ship will sometimes bug out and it will be impossible to change speed. This doesn’t happen often, but I will try my best to find out why it is happening and fix it.
Enemies should always be moving. Right now, some enemy ships do no move due to AI pathfinding issues. I will try to change it so that if the enemy ships have not found a path to the player, they will have a default movement pattern.

One item not on the to-do list that I may add is variable enemy spawn. Basically the idea is that enemies should not spawn at the same time, but instead spawn at different times in the wave. For example, on wave 6, instead of having all 6 enemies appear at the start, have 3 appear and then the other 3 join the fight over time. This should help avoid the current repetitiveness of the waves and make the game more interesting.

I hope to have a more polished version by the end of this coming week. Stay tuned!