Version 0.1.0

Another month, another public demo. Unfortunately, free time's been rather scarce this past month, so I've been unable to work on as many features as I'd liked to. Still, it's not a slim update by any means (hopefully, anyways).

MAJOR CHANGES
Project name: Henceforth, angel.project will be known as "Metal Angels: Awakening"! There's a snazzy logo to go with it. Unless some major corporation flexes its massive legal muscles, odds are that'll be the game's name for the foreseeable future!

Character (stat) development: As I intend to take this project further than a simple arcade-like twin-stick whatever, the three characters now have upgradable stats governed by a re-named experience point system. Before you read further: ignore balance, as that's still a long, long way ahead.

Currently stats are, and work, as follows:
-Armor: HP, keeps you from dying. Might help with the possible-future-implementation-of-status-ailments.
-Attack: Makes your projectiles hurt more, somehow. I've some ideas in the pipeline to make this stat more interesting though.
-Speed: The name of the game. Makes you faster.
-Shield: Makes shield be deployed for longer, charge faster, and reflect projectiles with more damage.
-Overclock: The quirky one. Increases passive OC generation, active OC generation on deflection, and damage bonus while overclocked.

The current character archetypes are as follows:
-Dorothy: Jack of all trades, master of none. Intended to be the default medium difficulty.
-Annette: Tried-and-true. Slow, simple-but-reliable defensive playstyle that hits hard. Intended to be easier to pick up and play as.
-Nyx: On the bleeding edge. Fast, but not that threatening. A quick way to build up OC through putting yourself in harm's way makes this archetype the hardest one to play as, in theory.

Shocking explosions: Making effects de-spawn themselves if FPS are low isn't an elegant solution. I've been working on changing the enemy explosion effects to use bigger, but less numerous sprites. Performance ought to be more consistent and look prettier (I've shamelessly taken some nice sprites from Kenney, check it out). The current sound effect for an explosion leans on the gritty rather than the whimsy effect you'll see on screen but I'll eventually get to that. Explosions might be too bright to see what's going on for a bit at the moment. That too shall be worked on.

Shocking explosions II: Modules now create a shockwave when blown up, sending other modules and bullets astray. Though chaotic, it does give a neat sense of momentum when stuff's going up in flames everywhere.

Expanded arsenal: Any character can use any weapon now (though it must first be selected from the main menu) and I've included a few standard 2D guns. These are a revving-up minigun, a shotgun with a large knockback and a spread-homing multi shot. A very apparent issue is the cacophony upon hitting an enemy with multiple shots at once. That too will be addressed.

HUD moved to GUI layer (not with Visual Basic): If you recall from version 0.0.2, everything would zoom in when charging a boost, including the HUD, making it stretch and overlap. Not anymore! Though it may seem like a small change, it both helps me with the coding (slightly easier to position stuff on the screen) and will let me play around with different zoom levels to test out how far or close the camera plays best. Though sacrilege to pixel-perfect purists, everything's already very inconsistently upscaled and rotated.

EDITOR CHANGES
Nothing major, unfortunately. It's still clunky, but I added a few features that should make it a bit easier to use:
-Editor modules are colored yellow when they're not connected to anything
-There's now a console in the editor, indicating what you're doing
-You can't save a ship if there's unconnected modules
-You can now delete saved ships from the game (no confirmation message though!)

MINOR CHANGES
Sad boops will be heard when getting hit
Lowered plasma blaster's rate of fire, increased damage accordingly
Laser cooldown timer removed; it just takes more time to "holster" instead. Added holster and unholster timers to each weapon for just this purpose (the laser is the only one with a non-default timer for now)
Main "menu" displays stats for each character
Refined how friction is calculated. It's more accurate and should make movement (amongst other things) feel smoother.
Changed overlay filter to something more CRT-ey-ish
Restored basic drone enemies to spawn pool for variety
Proper versioning naming implemented

LOOKING FORWARD
Actually implement stuff mentioned in the 0.0.2 update
Proper level up screen and character menu
An inventory and resource system
Consider a different font (?)

As usual, thanks for making it this far and give the new version a whirl if you haven't already. I'd love to know what you think!

-sinis