Bonus, Shadows, Game Over

So, if you look carefully in those screenshots, above, you'll notice there's a black rectangle underneath the tank. And you'll see a black projectile beneath the yellow projectile. I just did the simplest thing I could to get shadows in. The tank shadow is actually two triangles, that's pretty darned simple. I tried to draw two triangles for the projectiles, and for some reason, that didn't work. So, I just drew a black projectile on the ground, underneath where the projectile in flight was. It works, it's gross, but you can't really tell.

Also, you may notice in the top screenshot that I've added a "Bonus" timer that counts down. Each location has its own starting point value, and rate that it ticks down. Some of the late levels start with a big score that ticks down fast. Good luck!

There's a thing you don't see in those screenshots, but you would if you played the game:

http://bigdicegames.com/BZone/bzone.html

I'll assume that you just went and played the game, and locked on to a target. Up until now, the angle that was displayed in the target display (upper right, but less upper than before, now that I've wedged the bonus display in there) was in radians, because, of course it's in radians. Except now, it's in degrees. Maybe that's easier for people to understand.

I've commented on stuff I could add to this game before, and I won't rehash old features. Some stuff that suggests itself now:

• less dorky tank shadows - they kind of remind me of bases for miniatures. Which is OK in its own way, but sort of an accidental effect.
• less hacky projectile shadows - I'm sure I have some typo in the code somewhere. One thing that's bad about WebGL, and really, a lot of graphics pipelines, is that it's often tricky to figure out why you're not seeing a thing.
• score balancing - right now, the game heavily rewards the quick player. That's OK, but not exactly the gameplay style I had in mind.
• firing rate tuning - if you're heading full speed ahead, and you let loose with a barrage of bullets, they cluster together like a big wall. That doesn't seem right.
• smarter cutscene logic - the tanks just try to leave the area, but they could easily get hung up on an obstacle. It wouldn't be too hard to find a free path, but I never got around to that.

Still, I've got a game that reminds me a bit of Battlezone, and a bit of Wing Commander. Time to start working on my next game.