The BitBull Blog

Since the last post I’ve mainly been tweaking – playing the game over and over again, adjusting the various difficulty parameters and noting down and fixing various bugs that crop up. My aim at this stage is to get to the point where I have an ‘alpha’ version that can exist as a playable demo, albeit with a very limited set of weaponry and enemies. I’m getting there!

So, in no particular order, heres some of the stuff I’ve been working on…

The Dawdle Police
I’ve made the ‘bastard‘ enemies operate similar to the ‘baiters’ in Defender in that they only appear once the player has spent a certain amount of time trying to complete a level and (unlike other enemies) don’t need to be destroyed in order to complete a level. More bastards appear the longer the player hangs around adding even more of a sense of urgency to the proceedings.

The Pyramid
Some of the more observant readers may be wondering why there are two warp gates that appear at the end of each level. Well, in a nod to ZX Spectrum ‘classic’ The Pyramid, the gate you choose affects the level you’ll appear in next, so rather than a linear arrangement of levels we have a pyramid-type structure with each row defining the difficulty level and each column a different combination of enemies, terrain and weaponry. I will probably add special collectables at certain locations to add an exploratory element to the game. I’ve always had this functionality planned from the start but have only just implemented it properly.

Mutant Frenzy
In another nod to Defender, now if you’re careless enough to let all your babies get abducted a ‘mutant frenzy’ is unleashed! Every jetboard-riding enemy mutates and every remaining attack wave is released. Basically it’s total chaos and you probably won’t last long after this happens!

Score Combos
Killing enemies in quick succession now ups a bonus multiplier which multiplies both the score and cash awarded. It’s a good way to earn extra cash and I like the way it adds to the ‘pinball’ feel of racking up large amounts of points.

Extra Lives
Extra life pickups now appear when a certain score threshold is reached. You’re going to need them!

Game Over
I’ve added a fixed number of lives per game and the ‘game over’ message. Spent quite a while tweaking the ‘game over’ effect!

Jetsuit and Jetboard Upgrades
I’ve now fully implemented the code that makes your jetboard and jetsuit upgradeable items. The upgrade state of all equipment is now persistent across games.

Plus a myriad of other small improvements and bugfixes.

I may now add one extra weapon type (machine gun) and possibly a couple of extra enemy types before moving on to add a few elements of missing game audio, background music, and then a first implementation of overall menu UI.

Dev Time: 5.5 days
Total Dev Time: approx 80 days

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