Low pH and Loads of Becquerels

This week I have started to implement radioactive acid slime because without it Horizon Blaster just felt empty. In the finished game, the liquid terrain types (lava, ocean, green stuff) will be used in conjunction with other solid terrain or with ground structures like steel girders and platforms.

The other improvement is that level files now contain definitions for placement of buildings. I am using a few simple placement patterns like lines, rectangles, grids and circles. This gets me one step closer to a level editor which in turn brings us closer to real levels.

Low pH and Loads of Becquerels

I also tweaked the homing missiles a bit, they will lock onto a target a moment after launch which makes their handling much more interesting.

Red Magma and Rocket Trails

Lava is now magma red, improving the visibility of blaster shots greatly...

 

The technical improvement for today is that some types of weapons now use dynamically updated meshes for their trails. In the screenshot below, the plasma gun and rockets don't generate disconnected particles anymore...

 

Playing with Lava

The amount of fire, explosions and lava that you can squeeze into a Shmup is remarkable. Today I did just that.

Shots now leave marks of molten rock on the planet's surface as seen in this video:

Here is what the lava terrain looks like after a complete overhaul. This pool of magma wobbles und bubbles, which is extra motivation to keep your ship in the air:

Against the bright terrain shots can be hard to keep track of. This will need some tweaking.

PS: I recorded the 2 videos in 60 fps but I am pretty sure the processed video I see on YouTube is not. Is there a way to enforce higher framerates?