Got a short but sweet review on http://playthisthing.com/gum-drop. I'm glad that reviewers were getting the concept of the game, but it does seem I need to expand the game beyond having a novel game mechanic to something more meaningful.

 Well anyways, more updates to the game, I am now up to 17 levels with around 19 different enemy types with their unique behaviour and abilities. I'm glad that the system I built is flexible enough that I can whip up a new level and enemy within 20 minutes. The biggest problem right now is getting ideas for new levels and enemies :) But I'd rather have that problem over performance or stability issues hehe :)

 

Gum Drop development is humming along as I have added 5 new levels, 5 new enemy types, and did major optimization work. These optimizations were primarily driven by poor performance on the 360, but it has improved performance on the PC as well. I have reduced garbage collection to minimal and smaller chunks, although this is not the desired number(0 is the magic number), I am happy with it so far. I'm still planning to add more features to the game as I am in a stable state and there is still alot of room for improvement. Here's a short video of the changes I have made so far.

 

I once heralded C# for being a nice programming language because you get a standard library that is actually useful, like string manipulation and what not. I never really dabbled with C# game programming before XNA. Most of my C# experience is from making event driven applications that did not run on a continous loop. So the impact of using strings all over the place in a sloppy manner never really hit me until I started programming for XNA. Granted, the CLR on Windows does a awesome job of GC'ing strings that I never really noticed it while developing on the PC. However when it came to testing on the 360, performance difference was like night and day compared to the Windows version. This immediately sent red flags for me because I have a lot of optimizations to do. Being sloppy on the PC is forgivable but it sure does bring the pain in the 360. So lesson learned is that I should treat the 360 as a limited resource device rather than the monster house triple core computer I thought it was.

 But I'm still hoping the 360 GC performance would improve!

 

 

Dear Mr Garbage Collector,

 I really love you, I really do! You pick up my garbage when I use GC.Collect(). You come on a regular basis especially when I become wasteful with the limited resources given to us. You ensure that we do not pile up in our own heap of trash. But of course, you don't drive a ferrari, but a huge lumbering truck. Especially in what they call the Xbox neighborhood. You do your rounds to everysingle house in the Xbox neighborhood, unlike the PC neighborhood where you collect by the generation of the residents. What really irks me though Mr. Garbage Collector is that you are very different when it comes to both neighborhoods. Especially for someone coming from the PC neighborhood moving to the Xbox neighborhood, your difference in service is just silly. I noticed you are pretty sensitive when it comes to the Xbox neighboorhood, coming along and picking up Garbage everytime 1mb is used up in that area. I really dislike that because you clog the neighborhood with your big smelly truck. So this petition is for you Mr. Gargabe Collector is to complain to your boss Mr. Ballmer that he needs to invest more in making the garbage trucks faster and better in the Xbox neighborhood. I know it's a long shot, but I'm sure your voice will be heard more loudly than mine.

 Yours truly,

Elbert

Having worked on the environmental hazards, I was inspired to add a level where there is this gigantic gravity well spinning in a counter clockwise direction that affects all objects in the level. This resulted in what I think is a pretty fun and dynamic level where survival is top priority as all the objects in the game are in constant motion because of the gravity well. It also maginfies the danger of enemy projectiles because they are harder to see and have increased velocity. I've also added rumble support for the gamepad, adding rumble to smashing and the player getting damaged. Work on the game continues at a steady yet relaxed pace. Thankfully I architectured the game so that adding these new concepts and features to the game is a trivial matter, leaving me more time to work on the design of the game rather than the technical implementation.

There is however a concern that has been in the back of my mind since I started deploying to the Xbox. It is the performance degredation in relation to the .net CLR on the Xbox being non-generational. Which greatly affects my game because of all the objects that tend to be garbage collected. I know that I should be mroe careful with it, and I read most of the optimizations needed to do it, but it just seems really a bad judgement in part of microsoft to add such a gimped version of the CLR to the 360, making cross platform development a more tedious task, especially for indie developers with limited time, skill and resources to optimize for the 360. Don't get me wrong, I am greatful for all the hardwork the XNA team has put into the SDK, but I just wish these were addressed more publicly rather than keeping developers silent on the issue.

 

Well enough with the rants, here's the video of the new level I am working on, Enjoy!

 

First of all, I would like to thank everyone for their support and encouragement throughout the development of Gum Drop. Without the feedback and honesty from everyone, I would have not been able to get the game in such a polished state. 

In other news, Gum Drop continues development for the next competitions, mainly Dream Build Play and the Independent Games Festival. I have already slated a bunch of new features that I would like to add to the game before I submit them. Currently one of those new features are environmental hazards. Currently I have two implemented in the game, storm and gravity. Storm is a pretty simple damage over time hazard where any game object within its area will take damage. Gravity is what you think it would be, is a area where there is a gravitational pull in the center. It is very similar to the gravity power up, but this one is on a permanent basis and does not move.

 

Gum Drop, a free 2D top down space smashing game has been released for free by Elbert Perez, a part time independent developer.  Featuring physics based smashing action in space, Gum Drop defines a new way to play the top down space shooting genre by removing the shooting mechanic and adding the S.M.A.S.H(Structural Mining Automated Swinging Hammer ) system. The S.M.A.S.H system appeases the player's primal urge to smash up enemies, and collect the rewards of his smashing.

• Fight in the colorful depths of outer space in a beautiful 2D top down view
• Link to your S.M.A.S.H to swing it around or throw it at enemies for metal bending destruction
• Leave you S.M.A.S.H unlinked and let it follow you around or direct it to S.M.A.S.H directly into your opponents
• Fight over 15 different enemies of various shapes,sizes, and behaviors
  
• Feed your base with Gum Drops to get more Power-Ups that will give you the advantage you need

edit: I've uploaded a new version which features stronger powerups and increased damage to projectile reversals. This should bring the rest of the power ups up to par with the S.M.A.S.H