BallBoard

In this game, you play as a ball on some sort of plane, which tilts in response to where you are on it. You've got a gun (of sorts) which you can pivot around yourself, and fire to kill enemies! 

The thing intended to be "fragile" here is the situation, since the plane is unsteady and you can fall off of it. Originally, this was going to be about you playing as something like an egg on a board, where you had to tilt to move it around, or about a small animal running around on a swinging chandelier... However, I spent so much time coding the core mechanics that I ran out of time to develop the visuals.

At the moment, the only ways to lose are by losing all HP to enemies, or by "slipping," in which you tilt the plane too far for too long.

Let me know if there's anything that feels "off"! Everything can be adjusted easily: the plane's springiness, camera angles, the gun rotation speed, powerup effects and durations, enemy damage and movements, etc. Right now, everything is adjusted to be what felt right to me and me only, so feedback is appreciated!

CONTROLS:

- [Z] rotates the gun around. It alternates direction, so the first time you hit "Z" it moves counterclockwise, then clockwise the second time, and so on so forth.

- [X] fires the gun!

- [← / ↑ / → / ↓]  to move.

MECHANICS:

- Slipping: as the plane tilts further and further in any direction, the player begins to slip. When the plane is yellow, they slowly slip in the direction of tilt, going faster once the plane turns orange, and even faster once it's flashing red. In addition to the plane coloration changes, there is a display for whether or not you're slipping in the top right of the screen. Here, you can see your character and their gun from a top-down view. However, you may also notice some yellow/orange/red lines protruding from your character at times, as well. These lines indicate the direction and extremity with which you are currently slipping!

- Slip meter: on the top left of the screen is a bar, which I call the "slip meter." If the plane is flashing red (meaning it's been tilted too far), this meter will begin to deplete. It restores over time (and eventually will have powerups), but does so slower than it runs out.

- Health: the player starts out with 5 health, and loses some each time they hit an enemy. This is displayed below the "slip meter." For a collision with an enemy to register, they must hit the very center of the player.

- Invulnerability: immediately after being hit, your character will flash a little bit. This indicates that you are invulnerable to more hits (but not slipping), and lasts for about half a second.

- Items: occasionally, an item will spawn in. Right now, there are 5 possible powerups:

• Health restore: restores 2 lost health.
• Health boost: fully restores all health, and permanently adds a hit point.
• Freeze: freezes the plan in its current position, for a while.
• Gun boost (temp): greatly increases fire rate, temporarily.
• Gun boost (perm): slightly increases fire rate, permanently.

The ones I deemed more powerful (the permanent ones) are fairly rare, with each having (at the moment) a 5% chance of spawning. An important note on items: there can only be ONE item on the ground at a given moment, so while you might be saving a health restore until you lose 2 HP, just know it might be replaced with something else! 

- Score: below the health and slip meters, you'll see your score and the current wave. Your score is a combination of how long you've been playing and the number of enemies you have killed.

- Wave: as your score increases, so does the current "wave," proportionally. This is the number shown below the score. Each wave has a different enemy types and frequencies at which they occur, and at the moment, I only have 11 waves defined. Over the course of a wave, enemies get slightly faster.

- Prestige: after beating the 11 waves once, you "prestige," and begin the game again, but harder: the plane is slightly more slippery, and enemies are slightly faster. You can prestige multiple times, and each round is exponentially harder than the last.

TODO:

- Sound!