Aerosub 2024-06-12 - movement and awareness

MOVEMENT:

Pictured: flying in reverse in Aerosub.

I've finally had a chance to revisit movement, and implemented a new movement style. It's still not perfect, but it iterates towards my intended feel. It's somewhat inspired by the most classic of shmups.
Pictured: controls for Stargate (1981), the sequel to Defender (1980). The controls are similar, but Stargate added more buttons.

In Defender (1980), the movement was unique compared to later shmups. The joystick could only move up and down, there was a button for thrust, and a button for change direction. There was no way to stop completely. Once the player started moving, they'd continue moving. It was clunky for movement, but still fun to play.

Although a bit awkward, the movement allowed for some tricks. If the player was outnumbered and being pursued, they could pull off a maneuver like:

• Thrust to escape to a safe distance.
• Quickly reverse direction.
• Fire off a few shots, while still floating backwards from momentum, to thin out their pursuers.
• Switch direction again, and
• Thrust to escape to a safe distance, REPEAT.

Perhaps it is not quite as I remember, but I wanted to try and make this doable in my game. You don't see this kind of movement much nowadays, because it's more common to see:

• Fly in one direction at fixed speed, maneuver in a box - top-down like Raiden, Touhou or side like Gradius, R-Type
• Move and shoot in any direction independently - Robotron, X-Morph defense
• Run-and-gun - Metal Slug, Contra

This is just a long way of saying that I'm not 100% sure of the movement I'm intending, because it's rare, but I hope I'll know it when I see it.

The previous FixedMovement in Aerosub meant that if the player is attacking a group of enemies that are also attacking, there was sort of awkward dance. Player would point towards the enemy, then fly away to safe distance, then have to fly back towards the enemy a bit to fire. The new movement should make this a little bit less awkward, as the player can drift backwards.  Horizontal movement is also no longer instantaneous, but acceleration is fast enough that it should be hardly noticeable.

Possible other movement variations:

• Pure accelerate / decelerate. This was the first one, and it sucks!
• Dedicate "double tap" to switching direction. I like this, but what if some players have trouble double tapping?
• A dedicated "change direction" key. Please, god no.
• Scrap the entire left/right defender movement, and go for something like Luftrausers' omnidirectional movement.

What may happen is I'll implement all of these, and allow the player to pick them via a debug menu.

Pictured: Focusing on what's in front of where the player is facing, in Aerosub.  This was rolled back; too jittery!

This update was also meant to include changes to the camera.  Instead of being locked to the center of the screen, it was supposed to give more screen real estate to whatever was in front of the player.  Ultimately, I had to roll this back, as it was too rapid and jarring.  It's another thing I may put on a debug menu.

AWARENESS:

• The background now dims at nightfall, with a slight red hue at sunset and sunrise.

• There are health bars for the aerosub and the player's base.  They fade out after a time.
• I tried and failed to implement radar in this cycle.  I'll give it another try soon.  This is the most often suggested feature.

ETC:

Other changes this cycle:

• New resource types spawn at the bottom of the sea.  But, you can't spend them on anything yet!  The player will need to explore undersea to collect these to achieve their goal.  It's currently too easy to collect them.  It'll either take time to mine them, or the player will have to signal to an ally to pick it up.
• Underwater movement is now sloooooow.  The player is meant to be simultaneously safer (fewer threats) and more defenseless (slower, some weapons don't work) when underwater.  The current aerial enemies are not meant to ever go underwater, but they do now because there's no other underwater threats at the moment.
• Spacial changes: enemy bases are farther apart, the bottom of the sea is deeper.
• Balance: waves are stronger, squads are bigger.

See you next week!