You thought I'd given up? Not I, said the Lee. Sure, it got sticky, when I realised that I was going to be dealing with over 200 different objects in my game, but I don't mind the amount. It's the amount of repetition that got to me.

Currently, my game is almost ready to go to its' first beta. This version has black ants, red ants, spiders, centipedes, and a gnat. Today, only the centipedes and red ants give a score. By this time tomorrow, I hope to have everything providing a score.

Also, as things stand right at this moment, no insects are fatal. Obviously, I have to fix that, and certainly will do. But, the important thing is that right now, as I type this, EVERYTHING DOES WHAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO DO!

The black ants wander around, 40 of them on screen at any given time. The spider spawns, runs towards the player, and spits a web. If the web hits, the player can't move, and some red ants spawn. Red ants are nastier than the black variety, and actively hunt the player. Every so often, a centipede spawns at one of the corners, and heads towards the player. Shoot it, and it splits into 2 smaller centipedes. They split, and the next things split, until you are left with single-segments of centipede rushing towards the player. When these get shot, they give a score.

And, randomly at the moment, a gnat will spawn. It flies around the playfield really fast, makes up to 5 passes, then shoots off-screen. If you shoot this, you get a nice big bonus.

The plan is to have some kind of mechanism on the ants to force spawn the spiders, which will in turn force spawn the centipedes, which will force spawn the beetles. (Yet to be implemented.) Gnats are currently a purely random bonus, but I am thinking about how to force spawn them, too. Something impressive, for sure. Maybe make the player not shoot single centipede segments until all 8 are on screen, or something like that.

Anyway, there is nothing playable for anyone in the world other than me today. But, there will be in a day or two. I promise!

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	honestgamer - April 03, 2007 (10:48 AM) Maybe we can play it when our tournaments resume over on the forums, if it turns out to be as fun as you make it sound.