Tool of "Destruction"

The player has the Sphera as the main source of gameplay and as I mentioned before, this ball levels up on every level you enter, starting from the Steel (1) version. This deals 1 damage to bricks, and always bounces back. Not much going on with this without the upgrades. After destroying the preset number of bricks (set differently on every level and setting how hard the level is), the Sphera levels up to Firebolt (2). This deals 2 damage to bricks, and should it meet a brick with 1 hitpoint left, tears it right through. More hit points than that and still bounces back. The next level is the Fireball (3) and besides dealing 2 damage, also creates a small explosion that deals 1 damage to nearby bricks (every type of explosion does 1 damage). Novaball (4) does the same with a bigger explosion. The Volcanos (5) level, when touching a wall, creates a small volcano that regularly shoots a small projectile that can deal 1 damage (every type of projectile does 1 damage). On top of these, Spitfire (6) adds a projectile shooting barrel to the Machine (pad) that shoots in a regular interval (when Controller Powerup is active, the pad gets a button, representing that the player now can and has to shoot manually). ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: REDACTED!

Bricks of Color

Right now the game has 10 different bricks. There are five bricks with 1 hitpoint, but all of them have different purposes or different mechanics. Base and Small bricks are to make easy to destroy formations, but as they have 11 color, and 4 shade variations per color, I use them to make recognizable shapes and basically pixel art pictures. In fact, my process of building a level often involves me drawing a small picture, and then building that in the editor from bricks. Regenerating bricks do what you would probably expect: after they were destroyed, they simply regenerate back as long as there are other bricks around. Phase 1 bricks phase in and out of existence in a regular interval, making them harder to hit. Phase 2 bricks on the other hand phase out only if anything would hit them that could damage them. Tough bricks have 2 hitpoints, making them harder to destroy and cut through by the Sphera. They also have many color and shade variations. Rainbow bricks have 3 hitpoints and there is a reason why their colors animate, making them stand out. Usually only one occurs on a level, and that is most probably a boss, or miniboss. Should you be able to destroy a rainbow brick, all other bricks are destroyed, defeating the level immediately. Invulnerable bricks don't have hitpoints. They cannot be destroyed by the Sphera or explosions or projectiles, so they aren't counted when all the other bricks are destroyed. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: REDACTED! They can be destroyed only with a Breakthrough Powerup, so when that's active, the level won't end until all of them are destroyed, or the Breakthrough Powerup expires. Counter bricks can have hitpoints from 1 to 99, making them very hard to destroy. But they are bigger and easy to hit. Exploding bricks have a timer that starts to count down as soon as something would damage them. There is no way around it, the player has to wait until the timer reaches zero, then the brick creates a huge explosion, and several smaller ones.

How do you like the Sphera levels and the variety of bricks in the game? :)

See You next time!

László (Coyote) Eszik