7/29/25

Version 2.1

Over the past 7 months, I've slowly but surely added to the project. 

For awhile, shop development was my core focus. Players can now customize their color, particle color, and can unlock tracks. The unlocked tracks can be added or removed from the game playlist. 

What took the most work so far in the shop was the purchase button, and the audio tracks. 

An audiomanager "singleton" (I forgot the right Godot term) interacts with the saved Player Settings singleton and the shop script (when active) to manage what songs are currently playing. There is a separate music player for sample of songs when hovering on them in the shop. 

The main game logic has been simplified and refined. Before, there were 2 clunky sections of code controlling how different lasers spawned. Now, there is one main function that much more closely resembles the feeling of Flappy Birds, a key inspiration for this game. To elaborate, the difficulty progression is no longer concerned with the gaps between spawned lasers, but instead is simply about the speed of all moving nodes within the game (lasers, coins). 

As part of the shop and giving the player one more optional thing to do, coins have been added! Some technical difficulties forced me to get creative with where the coins are spawned. You will see them move at a slightly different rate than the lasers -- consider that part of the challenge. 

Cody Munn, musician, added three beautiful tracks to the game, which can be unlocked via progressing through the game or via purchasing one of his songs with coins. Track 1 was made by me. I plan on adding 2 more tracks to the game. 

A simple achievement system has been added to the game to tell the player when they have unlocked certain tracks or made a new highscore. I hope to add a simple public highscore feature at some point soon. The achievement system will likely also be expanded later. Most of the achievements are tied to audio, except for the special items, which are not yet implemented into the shop. 

The set of background images that spawn change whenever the score reaches 50, 100, 150, 200, or 250. The images are supposed to represent the character progressively breaking out of the "Grid", which can be interpreted however the player likes -- The matrix, the cyberverse, etc. 

In the future, laser colors will likely change with the background image sets, and there may even be a visual effect that signifies the transition between what I'm calling "world stages". 

The background building images are generated via chatGPT and then edited via photoshop. The splash screen was also made by chatGPT. Everything else was made between me, Godot, Photoshop, and GDScript. A lot of what is seen visually is simply colorRect2D or line2D nodes. 

There are also some cheats added to the PC version of the game. The left and up arrow buttons add to the score during the main gameplay loop, and while in the shop, home + r resets the player stats, and home + up adds 25 coins to the player's coin bank. That's all the secret functions that you need to know about. ;)

I want to add sound effects to coin pickups, and maybe to death. As I mentioned, lasers will likely end up changing colors with the background building images, and a public highscore system will be important. There are a few other features that I have in mind, including several "special items" that will unlock once players hit a highscore of 150 or 200. More to come soon. Thanks for your support :)