This is just a small update showcasing a new combat mechanic for my game.

The new mechanic is a dash ability that grants the player temporary invincibility to avoid enemy projectiles. I decided to add this capability make the gameplay faster and perhaps even more "thrilling," as you zip about avoiding enemy fire.

While this was a good start, it felt a bit incomplete in my eyes. I though about ways to make it more fun, and eventually fell back on the idea of a "Dash Attack."

This was an idea I had experimented with during my days making games with Stencyl, however it was more of a counter attack ability than something you could just execute at any point like in this game.

In any case, I made it so that pressing the B button near the end of the dash animation would initiate the attack.

Ugh...

The mechanic worked as intended, and it was a little fun to execute, but it still felt anemic. It lacked that "oomph!" needed to make the move feel satisfying.

This is when I added the flash to the attack, and that's when it all clicked! That's when it felt fun to me.

That fun lasted for about 10 seconds until I was disappointed again.

I realized that if I was to use this in my game, the flight mechanic would need to be revamped.

Holding the A button to fly and pressing the B button when dashing to do the dash attack felt uncomfortable.

So I went back to the drawing board to make it so that flight mode could be toggled on or off with a button combination.

Now things felt right.

While in flight mode you automatically hover, so any movement can be managed with the D-Pad, and attacking can be done with the B button.

In addition, the A button can be pressed to cancel flight mode.

This revamp also allows the player to execute a simple jump without engaging flight mode. 

Now both the flight and dash / dash attack feel complete and fully fleshed out as mechanics.

There are other mechanics as well (like exiting your SHELL) but I want to save that for another post at some point.

For now please enjoy this update!

-Nigel