The power up system has gone through a few iterations throughout development, so I thought I'd take a look back at how it's evolved. It was initially a basic pick up that would appear after certain enemies were cleared, and would just level up the standard gun, then I thought about mixing it up a bit with a shield item and some bonus points. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/37042970/9e7dc0bb8fb73f076f4bc81bf344bccfb09c4194.gif[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/37042970/3a9736fe512d4a3c8431d815a631da0ebcfe9573.gif[/img] This was all a bit boring though and I wanted to try making some proper powered up special weapons, so I started with some classic weapon types from Contra 3 as inspiration (apart from the laser, I hate that laser) and took on the homing missile first. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/37042970/d910a0336bf4fecc0b68cf77df4bcb282d3a7237.gif[/img] I wanted the special weapons to feel more... special, and have a bit more visual impact, so I thought a kind of film burn effect might work so it looks like the film is getting scorched by the powered up shots. I'm not sure that's really communicated, but I kinda like how they look now anyway. Here's the spread shot... [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/37042970/5c60fb53e5b61cbb32ccdbae09a75b1aa7ac430a.gif[/img] And a heavy shot, which spawns three explosions on impact that take out enemies. It's a bit OP at the moment and I'm not really liking it so I'll probably end up scrapping it for something else. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/37042970/e6305ef005a4d8e06c13bced616db114cc29e542.gif[/img] I wasn't really sure at this point how to implement the new power ups though. The previous system spawned a predefined power up (gun, points or shield) after a chain of enemies was destroyed, and I initially had the gun power up version of that just cycle through the different new guns so the player could wait and choose what they wanted. But I kind of wanted to expand it a bit more with other power ups so it really needed a different approach. After a Fantasy Zone session or two, I decided to steal it's shop mechanic! Enemies would now drop apples as currency (which start shrinking and losing their value after a second or so, so you need to grab em quick for max value) and instead of spawning power ups, the enemy chains would spawn the shop, where you can buy various upgrades... [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/37042970/f95f7ad76df234b1ea209a4c1a01473c84ad0870.gif[/img] The level structure has since changed again and in the current version, the shop only appears in between more clearly defined waves of enemies, but more on that later... Cheers!