I decided to give the game's philiosphy a name. That is the Active Movement System, with this philosophy the player should never sit idle for long periods of time waiting for things to happen in a tower defense game. The player's direct involvement is crucial to winning the game. Having the player dynamically upgrade and pick up money are core components to the game. Also having certain nodes be movable adds another dimension to a already crowded tower defense genre.

My game Impossible Shoota has just been released on Xbox Live Indie Games for 80 ms pts. It is a straightforward dual stick shoota where you fight 500 enemies, and at the end you are rewarded with a game code for my other game Neo Terra!

After discovering that the game had an inefficient way of handling the turrets I have been able to increase performance of the game on the Xbox 360 which has always been a pain point in developing on XNA. I've also cleaned up the collision handling code and removed alot of excess calls that were not needed in the first place. I've also changed how the projectiles are rendered to make them more visible and crisper to the user, I used to do additive blend to make them more glowy, but the end resultas a bit blurrier and less defined outline that made them hard to see. I also made the background into a darker shade to make the ships seem more saturated/desaturated. I have also been tweaking with gameplay as I am trying to find the balance of making the game exciting at the first enemy versus easing in the player into the action. Overall though I am happy with the changes to the game both visually and techincally. However I am still unhappy with the gameplay. Here is a video of the latest changes:

Download it here for only 80 ms pts!

Conquer the galaxy in 5 minutes or less! Use brains and brawn to conquer enemy planets across an endless variation of gameplay options. Featuring 8 player matches (4 local players and 4 AI). Quickly conquer neighboring planets to quickly gain the advantage, however attacking too quickly leaves your planets vulnerable to the enemy. Plan, Execute, and Conquer!

* Supports 8 players (4 local players and 4 AI)
* Customize every facet of the game to create your own unique gameplay experience
* Each level is randomly generated