I've been meaning to post this for about a week, and seeing how today ( And yesterday ) have been spent being really frustratingly trying to get the pinball game to work with the new version of Box2D, I thought I needed a break and should post this up.
Orbs is now a game. Hurray! You can start it, you can clear levels, you can die and it'll take you to the Game Over screen, and then you can run it again. That makes it a game, rather than just a demo, and is a really nice and important milestone to get out of the way.
Aside from getting the basic framework in place, I've added a ton of stats to it, put the medal award code in ( So it slides in nicely down the bottom right to let you know when you've won one ) and added a new baddie.
Those purple bad boys are "leechers". They leave your ship the hell alone, and instead home in on the Orb. When close enough they suck up some energy from it ( The energy bar in the top right there shows that some energy is being stolen ).
When the Orb has no energy remaining, that's it, Game Over. This is the core mechanic behind the game, that it's fun flying around shooting the crap out of things, not so great dying and only having 3 lives. So in Orbs your ship will regenerate so long as the Orb has enough energy to allow it ( Same thing is going to happen with the smart bombs ). The Orb powers everything, and you've got to protect it.
The plan is to have a nice mix of baddies which come after your ship, and ones which just go all out to destroy the Orb. The tricky part for me will be getting the balance right, so you're encouraged ( Or forced ) to move away from the Orb at times leaving it defenceless, rather than just sitting on top of it overly protecting it.
I'm really itching to get back to working on it, but I've got to nail this pinball game as it should be complete in a couple of weeks and we want to get it out there.
Squize.