Aside from coming up with a new enemy -- who will not be properly introduced until a later entry, which I refuse to write until it moves and handles in-game like I want it to -- I've been working on various effects for Asplode! this week. While the overall aesthetic of the game is decidedly retro, I allow myself liberties on the way I achieve the overall aesthetic. I also allow myself to use an asinine amount of particle effects. This entry is an image-based one in the evolution of the pentabomb's asplosion effect. The first attempt I made for it was a relatively smaller-scale one, as I didn't want to go too over-the-top with the asplosion effect due to concerns about screwing up the minimalistic visual style of the game.


I was happy with this effect until I realized, this evening, that the pentabomb's asplosion must set off a chain of subsequent enemy asplosions. Without that key visual effect the underlying gameplay mechanic felt cheapened. The overall area of the effect must be enough to encompass nearby enemies along with convey a sense of force and destruction necessary to make nearby ships asplode. This was the motivation for the following test:


This, also, felt like I was underselling the potency of the gameplay mechanic. I asked around in my various IRC channels for ideas and the idea of a shockwave was mentioned a couple times. This, at first, was an unappealing visual concept. Then, once I thought about it, the idea of a shockwave from the first asplosion was a great, simple effect to add to the normal asplosion effects from ships to indicate both destructive power (in the asplosion chain) and to serve as a visual cue that each asplosion is a part of the combo. So, after a few minutes of tweaking the particle engine, I came up with this (which must be viewed in sequence, as it's intended):


It's not perfect by any means, but after seeing it for the first time in action (and tweaking it), I really kind of dug it. More Asplode! news in the futureish time span.

Also, Rez HD is cool as hell.