Space Editing

This is what the development level looks like in the editor. This is where I add one of every kind of object so I can try it out in the game:

And this is current level 2, where I've put a bunch of planets I copied off the internet to see what works and what doesn't work:

A Dash of Color

I had a go at painting the Rocketship. The Rocket was initially - maybe some two years ago - created in 3D in Blender, then exported to bitmaps; I loaded those into a vector graphics editor and drew it with black vector lines, and again exported that to bitmap form as a 4x3 texture atlas and yesterday I shaded and painted the bitmaps by hand. Here's what it looks like now with an unpainted image for comparison:

And with a passenger on board the lights come on and you can see a silhouette of a character through one of the windows:

This is the most basic addition to the set of objects: a Sprite. In this demo level I have it as a satellite but it can be any image or animation, static or moving. In SpaceEditor you can also assign a diameter and a density to it, so it will bump into the Rocketship and cause damage.

What you see here is a Teleport object! I added it last minute to the SpaceEditor and to the game. In the editor you create two or more of these, and in each you specify where it teleports the Rocketship to, so they can be linked in any way we want. Rocket gets in on one side, pops out on the other side with the same speed and orientation.

Flying Saucers with Freaking Lasers on their Heads!

The Lasers burn through your energy level, faster in Hard difficulty mode, slower in Easy. 

But you can shield yourself behind planets:

We are not alone.

Replaced the old sparkly sun flare with a new supernova shockwave style effect. This is because I quit the idea of colliding particles with planets so the Rocket could hide behind planets. This way, if he's in range, he'll get hit.

Added a Flying Saucer UFO! Flight from A to B always follows a wiggly nearly random line. It pitches and rolls too!

A Couple of New Features!

The Rocketship turns red with heat from the Sun:

Showing the total score, running taxi ride fare (countdown), score multiplier and destination planet up at the top left, number of lives and fuel down at the bottom:

Picking up Stars give you score multipliers:

We can now see the little guy through the window when we a client has boarded the rocket:

Power-Up! Displays an image of choice with animated "electron" particles around it. Fuel goes up when picking it up. All these objects are configured in the SpaceEditor:

Black Hole object! Immense pulling forces drag the rocket into it: 

End of level screens with different buttons for when you complete or fail a level, in campaign or arcade modes:

Can start in Arcade (no lives, you can pick your own level if you've unlocked it) or Campaign (3 lives for completing the whole Galaxy sequence and score accumulates):

Objects like this planet can move and rotate, as configured in SpaceEditor: 

     

Devastating Comet!