All games must start somewhere, and Alien Deathmatch 2 starts right here!


This isn't the most entertaining shot I've ever posted, but it does show that work has now actually begun on the sequel.-=-=-

Things to notice from the above screenshot.
1. The grid's tiny!
Previously I drew the world onto a 1024x1024 texture, then resized the world to 2048x2048. This gave us a nice big world, but it also made all the tiles twice as big. This time everything's the size it's drawn, so.. The tiles aren't as big.
I'm not sure if I'll tweak that, to be honest. I'll have to wait and see how tricky corridors get..

2. Blood!
I'm currently just testing things, but the blood splattering is at the very least working! The blood is being left whenever a bullet times-out.. (which right now is stupidly short, due to me wanting to be able to SEE it!!)
This is, right now, leaving a nice big circle of splatters around the player..
Once things are up and running, I'll try to get this emanating from bullets, not when they timeout, but instead when they hit an alien.. Get a nice angle going, and things should look pretty messy pretty quickly!

3. Same!
I'm using the same sprites.. No need to mess about, they did the job just fine.

4. I left in the mouse pointer. Silly me!


What you can't see is how much bigger the arena is. Although the tiles are smaller, the overall size of the level has shot up from 2048x2048 to 5120x5120. That's a teensy bit of a difference! And given the tiles are now 16x16, it means the level will have a "tile" resolution of 320x320 tiles.. As opposed to the original 64x64 tiles! Yowsers!
Basically, this means that levels will be able to be much more complex. You'll be able to have twisting winding corridors all over the place, and.. maybe even set up your own smallish missions within the arena. (maybe!)
To put that into perspective, if you walk the full length of an arena, top to bottom, at the same speed as the previous game.. It'll take you about 30 seconds.. The old one took around 10..


Fixes are due, too, of course, and first off I'm planning on adding some arrows into the game, that should help guide you to the next pickups. Nothing big and daring, but something to help you find the nearest Multiplier before your timer runs out, and maybe one for the super-weapon.
..
I might also be generous, and allow more than one of those at a time, this time around!

As always, we'll see what happens as we go..

In the meantime, I think I'll be keeping a dev diary going.. Might as well give it a whirl, although it usually doesn't last more than a couple of days when I try!!

I should also point out that this week's probably going to be "A game a week" free, due to this game being a bit more than a week's worth! Although, if all goes well, I might post a quicky beta version on Tuesday to keep you going!