4 MAY 2024:
- Almost done implementing a new way for explosions to be handled in the game. Previously, each enemy type could only show one type of explosion. Now, each enemy can explode up to 7 different ways, along with rotation and scaling variations. Makes the space combat look much more dynamic! Also, explosions have some logic to them so that weapons like the more powerful scrap cannon will always show larger explosions than weaker weapons. As you can see in the gif above, I still need to work on the hit detection a little so that explosions show up directly over the object instead of at the very edge of it.
- Reduced game load time to about 9 seconds (was 12 previously.) Because I can now scale explosion animations, I reduced the default size of some of the larger ones and also removed empty and excessive frames.
- Trimmed some of the level backgrounds. Some of these were originally 3k pixels by 2k pixels or larger, so making some of these smaller by removing extra black space has also helped give a performance increase.
IN OTHER NEWS:
The BASIC programming language turns 60! For those of you new to this devlog, one of the oddities of this project is that it is being written entirely in a modern version of BASIC called QB64PE. As you can tell by the 4+ years I've been working on this project, writing your own code is quite the challenge, but you end up learning so much more about actual game development than if you had just used a game engine. While most people associate BASIC with primitive text adventures and ugly pixel graphics, one of my goals with Scrapship has been to show how awesome the language can be for game development.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
"Don't count the days. Make the days count."
Thanks for reading and have a great rest of your week!