This game looks likes tons of fun but I'm not really sure I understand why you are making it without mouse aiming.

Have you tried the original version with mouse aiming? The main complaint people had was that mouse aiming was a pain, and I wholeheartedly agreed.
Now, that said, with auto-arrange, it would certainly be less of a pain, since you're guaranteed to have something facing forward. That said, it also kind of discourages using the weapons on the other side of the ship.
I could always make it optional. I think I'll have to figure it out during beta testing, because at this point, I don't think I'm really fit to judge a control scheme I've been using for months, haha.
Thanks for the feedback.

Another cross-post from TIGSource:



Unfortunately, the video encoding has made the background colour rather unsaturated, so I realize that it may look a little bland. Trust me, it's pulsating and just about eye-searing when you're actually playing the game. It has Perlin noise for a flamey effect at the top and bottom, and the area in the center slowly pulses in and out.



So just, uh, imagine that the video looks like that.

The video also features (much more visibly, thankfully) the new shotgun enemies. They turn toward the player and move fairly quickly, which makes them quite deadly. At long range, they're nearly useless, but when they're close, they can take just about anything out in one hit.
In other words, they work like a video game shotgun. I realize that actual shotguns don't work like that. It's a space shotgun with wings. Cut me some slack, here.

Added another boss:

I think this one is kind of neat, since you have to use the game's main mechanic in a new way in order to defeat it. Plus, it automatically solves the potential problem of running out of attachments during the boss fight!

That last boss has a neat concept, though it looks somewhat underwhelming. After the first few waves I was expecting the music to amp up and suddenly unleash a dozen of the missiles in a hellish Touhou inspired frenzy of spam. Still, I'm sure the fight is engaging enough when you're actually playing it.

Also I'm somewhat concerned by the new background and effects- while both look great I think they clash somewhat with the very slick pixel art. Perhaps some messing around with palette limitations or resolution stuff would fix that.

But in general the project is looking yummier with each update. When/how will this be available to the public?

That's a good point about the boss. The missiles actually get kind of overwhelming when there's 4 of them, but I could probably just make them a little slower and have it fire a ridiculous number off near the end of the fight. I'll certainly consider it.

The background looks a little wonky in the videos due to compression, but you're right that it pretty much has no palette limitations. I'll see if there's something I can do about that with Flash (or I could stretch it to be more pixelated, too). In terms of effects, what are you referring to?

I'm still kind of figuring out how this is going to be made available. I'd like to sell it, but I have no idea if it'll pass the Steam Greenlight gauntlet. I'll probably try it anyway, and also see if GOG.com, Desura, etc. are interested. Push comes to shove, if nobody bites, I can try selling it to a Flash portal. All of this is still a ways off, though -- I have a lot of features planned. I'm probably going to take a bit of a break from working on the game so I can get a website running for it and perhaps start showing it off a bit more.

By effects I guess all I meant were the puffs of exhaust.

Ah, okay. I think the issue with those is, like Azukki pointed out earlier, that they don't have outlines, so they look a bit different than the rest of the graphics. Otherwise, they actually do only use a few colours. I haven't really been able to come up with a decent replacement or modification for them.

I tried to upload a video of the new background effect, but YouTube's compression makes it kind of blurry. So, screw videos: today, we witness a huge GIF.



As you can see, I've forced it down to an 8-colour palette. Now it looks a bit more like something out of the demoscene.

I decided to bring the resolution for the game up from 640x528 to a nice, round 800x600. Originally, I wanted to keep it smaller so it could fit in nicely on a Flash portal, but more and more, I'm thinking that I'll release the game as a standalone. As you can see here, this gives me a little more room to play with:


This also has the added side effect of making the game a bit easier, which probably isn't a bad thing. Plus, I can add more enemies to the screen at the same time without it getting overcrowded.

Also of note is that I now have an IndieDB page for Magnaut here:

If you're at all interested in the game, please follow me on there! I'll be sure to cross-post any updates from this devlog from now on.

I'm working on the next world, which uses an old-school plasma effect done through palette cycling. It looks pretty neat, but I can't decide if it looks almost too silky smooth (note that it is, in fact, in the same pixel resolution as everything else, and fully aliased):


Alternatively, I could halve the resolution, though that means mixed pixel sizes, which kind of irks me:


Both are pretty mesmerizing to watch, either way.

Reminds me a bit of MOTHER games. Very cool. I like the same-resolution one better.

Thanks!
I decided to take the middle ground and go with something that has high resolution, but larger "bubbles."
Here are some gifs of the progress I've made in the last two weeks. It's been pretty busy, so I haven't gotten terribly far, unfortunately.


I've reworked the sword enemies a bit. They now retract after hitting something, so you can't just fly around willy-nilly slicing everything up. This also gave me an excuse to make them smoothly extend out of the chassis when they turn on, so now they look even more like lightsabers.


This enemy is entirely new. It charges up for a bit, then lets out a massive shock. The nearest enemy in range will take moderate damage. If there's nothing in range, it just spazzes out. It's not especially effective if you only have one on your side, since it fires slowly and is somewhat flimsy, but if you can get a few going at once, you'll do serious damage to anything nearby. I'm going to implement a bit more hit feedback for this, because the zaps somehow don't feel meaty enough as it is — possibly because the screen doesn't shake, unlike with other ships.

Here's some music that'll be showing up in world 4:

Make the larger ripples slower.