We are in late beta test right now with Ancient Galaxy.
Here are some highlights of the changes since the last update :
- Distortion shader effect for explosions & laser blasts
- Numerous AI fixes
- Fix to air control to keep player from getting where he shouldn't
- Bullet casings from bullet weapons
- Fake point light effect for aiming reticles
- Fake point light effect used to make flareguns & flashlights
- Items like flareguns, flashlights, tractor guns, forcefield guns moved to Equipment status instead of weapons
- Equipment can be created always once found
- Fixed character scaling code
- Added a small amount of random scale variation
- Added giant robot, made bats smaller
- Many many level improvements
- Added key remapping menu
- Redesigned main UI menu and some others
- Game saves AA & Quality settings from last run
- Made ship interior Blue
- Recolored in-game menus to nice blue/yellow scheme
- Added text object export from editor
- AI can now use gravity-ammo weapons OK
- DPS calculation fixed to properly account for area effect
- Fake lighting added to area traps to represent trap area
- Distortion added to shield effect
- Added level preview screenshots for each level
- Fixed knockback on damage
- Made corpses slide for a while before settling still
- Made hints not pause game, or require [space] to dismiss
Recently we also changed the shooting mechanic from random jitter to a upward kick when shooting mechanic, with a little random jitter.
A couple weeks ago I vastly reduced the lightmap space taken by the game by switching the main light to A8L8 from A8R8G8B8, and sometimes to L8 if the level has no sunlight. Also made empty worldtiles use 2x2 black texture.
The flashlight was a fun thing to add. It is sort of a hack but works very well in practice. Basically I do a ray cast from the player muzzle pos outward, then draw a fake point light where the ray hits something solid, scaling up the fake spherical point light, and adjusting the brightness based on the distance from the player and the radial size of the flashlight's effect.
