Vertical Shooter prototype

This is my first "Devlog"... ever!

Before I talk about this project, I want to give credit to the creator of the assets I plan on using. The artist who created the assets is Gustavo Vituri, and these are the exact art assets: Space Shooter.  I also made a quick-play game using the same asset pack:  Space Bits Survival

Now, onto this Devlog update!

I've always wanted to make some kind of shooter, but in the past there were many obstacles (that are outside the scope of this post).  One of my favorite series of shooters / shmups of all time is the "Star Soldier" series, specifically, Super Star Soldier and Soldier Blade on Turbografx-16 / PC Engine, so I modeled some of the current prototype to the "bullet" powerup of those games -- I mapped the 2 and 1 keyboard keys respectively to upgrade and downgrade the player's weapon, simulating what would happen when the player would "pick up" a weapon powerup (and "lose" the powerup from damage or whatever).  In my original "Space Bits Survival" prototype, I just used the first space ship sprite for the player for the sake of expedience, but I really wanted to use the others. So, I added a quick "cheat" -- press the 3 keyboard key to swap between the various player ships.  There are no enemies to destroy...YET -- I just wanted to get the "core" player ship mechanics working at a base level before I add enemies, etc.

Of course, a "vertical" shooter (in general) is often expected to have a "tall" aspect ratio (e.g. 3:4), and this prototype is currently 16:9, which feels too "wide" for a game of this type -- I am fully aware of this, and this is something I plan to address.  I may make the "game view" aspect ratio 4:3 (like the old console days), and fill the sides in with images or data, but I haven't quite decided yet!

This is going to be an on-going work-in-progress, so please feel free to comment or contact me!