It's been about a week since my last update here, and a lot has happened in that time. The game has a lot of new features and QOL improvements, many of which I hadn't planned on including initially. But work so far hasn't been entirely positive: after the first week it became obvious my initial development schedule was far too ambitious. I ended up delaying the creation of lots of content, but I think it was worth it in the end.
I'm not planning on cancelling work on this project, since it's really important to me that I see this through to completion. I may instead delay when I start working on my next game, which was meant to start production on the 15th. My current goal for Gadfly is to create a complete vertical slice of gameplay - in this case a polished version of the first level. Once that is complete I will host the game on itch.io, and update it over time with more levels. If I feel the game becomes polished enough that I can also put the game on Steam, I'll definitely do so as well.
Getting back to the progress made on the game, many additional core mechanics were completed. These include the various missile types, as well as behaviors for various enemies. The video shows some of the better designed enemies, although their layout in the level will be much more balanced further down the line.
I also completed a proper save system, which gives the player a limited number of continues to retry from a checkpoint - their score, game time, and captured enemies are all restored at each checkpoint.
Looking back, one design element I wish I had introduced sooner was a Singleton Structure. There are many instances in code were many different objects refer to a specific object's variables (such as the camera's position). I eventually added a master game manager that tracks the player's score and continues, and also hosts some of these commonly - used objects. Having this in the game from the start would have greatly simplified my design structure, but it has still been a great help.
At this point all the enemies I planned to be in the first level are complete, so the only remaining asset is the level's boss! Once that is complete I can assess how long it will take to complete the remaining levels, and adjust from there.