Episode 2

Episode 2 will start off with Snap heading into his job as a security guard for the Big Bark Root Beer factory. Normally it's a pretty boring job... but today, there's robots invading! Clearly this is more of Ocean's work... ...right? But Snap doesn't have his blaster on him! He'll have to kick his way out of this one...

This is the opening stage of Episode 2. One of my biggest focuses for Episode 2, especially for the opening, is to leave a lasting impression. One thing you might notice is that there isn't a single Episode 1 enemy in these screenshots! Episode 2 is going to have an entirely unique enemy roster. There's currently 5 new enemies programmed fully (although they all have some visual placeholders at the moment), with lots more planned.

It's also why this is a kick-only level, although I also wanted to force the player to learn how kicking enemies works. Going through Episode 1 without it is fine by me, but as the game gets harder, it's going to be an important tool to learn!

The Episode 2 stages are taking a lot longer to produce this time around due to more outside obligations getting in the way of development (been working on getting an actual job in game development, so that's been eating a lot of my time), on top of me being a lot more perfectionist and wanting to make all of the stages prettier & more interesting than most of Episode 1. All I can say is sorry for the longer wait for this release! I hope that the end result will be worth the wait, anyway.

I'm probably going to scale back my ambition a tiny bit for the future episodes for the sake of more timely development. (For instance, I'm probably not gonna make a whole new enemy roster again!) But I really want to make Episode 2 really good since it's going to be the first one that will require paying for the game. Even if it's cheap, I really want that price of admission to be worth it.

Lighting

You might've noticed it in the E2M1 screenshots, but Episode 2 will receive new lighting, to make the game have even more of its own stylish cartoon identity from Doom. Lots of dynamic lights have been added all over the game, with a cel-shaded look to them. Additionally, colors stay saturated when darkened in the distance, and glowing floors have a much more vibrant color to them.

Here in E1M4, the torches give off light that reflect on the world, the colors stay vibrant in the distance (purple stays purple/blue instead of becoming a yucky brown!), and the lava has a much more distinct orange glow to it.

In E1M8, the street lamps are able to give off a spot light effect now, illuminating the angry Guard Robo in this screenshot. The distant buildings also become deep blue instead of a dull grey.

Menus

I've also been making even more menu enhancements than what I showed off on Twitter a while back. Here's a back up of those, if you missed them: Imgur gallery

Say hello to the new difficulty menu! I had fun coming up with fun animations to demonstrate the changes between difficulties, instead of only relying on text to describe them.

A new feature coming to Episode 2, the "Challenge" menu! (If you've played any Sakurai games within the last 20 years, you should already know what's up.) The challenge board will be completely darkened on first start-up. When you inevitably finish a challenge though, then you'll reveal hints for the tiles surrounding it, giving you more to do.

I'm excited about this feature to give people a lot more replay value, and it compliments well with the new Record menu. A handful of challenges are going to be focused on teaching the player advanced techniques to improve their play. For example, there's a challenge for juggling enemies, so players hopefully will be more inclined to learn how to keep enemies in their stun state for longer.

Doing certain challenges can also unlock bonus content! The first bonus feature I will reveal that you can unlock via the Challenge board is "Infinite Weapon". This is a mode where you can pick any weapon in the game, and play a stage with infinite ammo. Play only with your favorite weapon, do a challenge run forced to just the basic gun, or even bring Episode 2 weapons into Episode 1 levels!