Things didn't work out as planned today, and I've spent most of the day hitting X again.
I think this is going to be pretty brief as it's just gone 2:50 am and I'm pretty dead on my feet. Main changes are the asteroids now use the bitmap technique as mentioned in the last blog ( Not final images, and the way they animate shows up the circle to circle collision checks quite badly, the final images will animate in such a way as to hide that ), the baddies drop an icon which can be shot to select your power-up ( Again placeholders. The final images will be a lot more colour coded to make it much easier ).
I've decided after a long think today, and some great ideas posted in yesterdays comments ( Vex, didn't reply there mate, but I really liked your timer based idea, but I think for a web game I have to strip away complications as much as possible. Too tired to go into depth right now why that idea could be complicated, bug me in the comments if you really want me to justify it ), I've opted for something quite straight forward.
A power-up icon is dropped after killing 20 baddies. You can shoot it to change it to a power-up you want, and then collect it. Every time you collect one you boost it's power ( Shown by the 3 new indicators at the bottom left ). Tomorrow ( Today ) I'll add the option to press space to change what power-up you're currently using ( Space was being reserved for a possible smart bomb, but I figure the player is going to have enough fire power as it is ).
Also the pulse weapon hasn't been coded yet, so collecting the icon with a little star on will break things. Not every build I post was going to be nice and neat I'm afraid.
I've also played with the difficulty curve a bit, and it's coming together a lot more. I've got at least one more baddie type in mind, maybe two ( And a third has just come to mind, but I've got to draw a line somewhere ), and then I should really be able to have a big push to finalise when things are triggered, how many shots they take to kill, how much energy you lose etc.
Also the asteroids themselves may drop point based collectables, as there's no combo system in this game, and I do want to give the player an incentive to move rather than just spin on the spot.
Despite my bloodshot eyes it's coming together nicely now, I'm finally starting to get a real feel for how I want it to play. A couple more days of giving it a really big push and we should be looking at something a lot more final.
Squize.