@viTekiM@mastodon.social I don't think that last one is necessarily a bad thing. It could give a player a chance to gear up before leaving the level.
Regarding checkpoints, I don't think it's frequency of checkpoints that's the problem, but the lack of understanding of progress.
If each level has the same amount of checkpoints, you could do it similar to Mario (World 1-1 through 1-4).
@PaulFerence Well the "problem" is it's boring to let it scroll off and shooting it often spawns the same thing (there's a table of legal spawns at work behind the scenes). I hate waiting as a game mechanic.
That's EXACTLY what I was thinking for the check point messaging! :D That's awesome!
@viTekiM Hmmm... Maybe power-ups that are shot at the end of a level provide a point bonus instead?
@PaulFerence Maybe... once I can detect that they're the last one I can do special things when they're shot. Right now I can't, so they just spawn new ones forever. :)
@viTekiM If that's the case, could a player juggle multiple power ups on screen forever at the end of a level? Would it be better to tie the trigger to the last enemy being defeated?
@PaulFerence Yeah. Last enemy defeated SHOULD lock out replacement power-ups.
Soon. :)
@viTekiM@mastodon.social If each level has a different amount of checkpoints, then perhaps a bar to signify R-COIL engine charge progress where every time you hit a checkpoint it fills a segmented chunk of the bar?