PetJac - first devlog - pottering about in GMS2!

A lot of headway has been made already, and will release executable and source code soon. Made with GMS2 of course, and rather than starting from a "blank slate" I've opted to use the Pivot Fight game as the 'engine' which I'm calling the 320 engine as it's a massive resolution of 320x180! makes it easier for me as a crap artist to make silly, low rez graphics too!

Game mechanics are the same as ye-olde Jetpac from 1982, grab rocket bits, shoot stuff, get fuel and fly to next destination!

Decided to build a rocket every level, so slightly different to original, but rocket parts are scattered around on each level, so you go exploring to find them.

Once rocket is assembled, collect the fuel and blast the baddies, remember to collect diamonds, gold ingots, bonus multipliers, power ups and extra lives!

Only designed 10 levels so far, need to play test them to see if they're actually FUN to play. After level 10, levels revert but difficulty is ramped up somewhat.

Played through to level 12 - gets hard then, but as well as making it more difficult, I've given you more lasers, power ups, bonuses etc. Did have a blast on 'impossible' mode which is actually great fun, not only because it's stupidly hard, but the amount of points you get is also stupid!

Things that need doing:

Bug that's been in since I decided to scroll some screens... GAME OVER text is set to 'room middle' which could be way off depending on where you've flown. Will either try to centralise it to your position, or scroll viewpoint to the middle. It is drawing to the GUI, and I have set the viewpoint as a test, but it seems completely random in it's positioning, and doesn't bear any resemblance to the game view port!

FIXED! - seems in my quest for ultimate pixel-perfect placing I wasn't using my trusty drawTextc64 function! Now I am and it's central!

Indication that rocket is refuelled (apart from the obvious level is full to brim!) probably a sound or something.

Play testing thoroughly, level 10 still a bit weird with the destructible bricks and so on. Has the weird mechanic where the rocket part will only fall if the player is dead, will probably change that at some point, but it's okay for now... blame it on the gravity!

Level 9 needs a bit more bonus, power and therefore points. Bonus level going in? Also added more diamonds to level 7, although they seem reluctant to appear. Wanted each level to have a unique feel and gathering mechanic, so level 7 for example will give you ample diamonds to grab which increase in value every time one is captured. (100,200,300 and so on)

PROBLEM! - Seemed like a good idea to have more points, bonus x9 and big power ups as the difficulty ramps up, but unfortunately you get to the stage where every few baddies killed gives you an extra life! (and easy to grab them as you're temporarily invincible when you start after dying) So... capped the bonus at x5 and stopped multiplying the baddie score automatically (e.g. 150 on easy mode, then it would double every time the difficulty went up.) Now you can't just go to level 9 on impossible difficulty and get a free life every few hits, playing forever even with the 'baiters' after you! The "Impossible" difficulty shouldn't be completely impossible of course! So I'll add in a few more bonus rings to help you but after x5, you're on your own!

SOLVED! - Scoring for baddies is now 100,120,130,140 etc up to 200 for the level 10 ones. Bonus still capped at x5 (might change that for higher difficulty after discovering yet another hard-coded number in the program!) Bonus coins become more plentiful as we go along, but avoids 'infinite play' scenario where everything you shoot gives you an extra life! Also changed the bonus and extra life text to be normal size rather than tiny.

Addendum - some other levels, like the small twirly baddies were a bit rubbish, so bumped up the points from 100 to 250, much more fun now to try and blast as many as you can!

Will probably change the enemy bullet firing (once they decide to fire!) At the moment you can be close to an alien and they'll blast you from point-blank range. Not very fair, so may wait until they're a bit further away form the player, or maybe do a random direction. The 'aimed' bullet they fire is sort of towards the player, but not exactly at the x,y coords.

Different power up other than more laser shots? Might do rear fire and possibly diagonal fire...