DEAD PETALS Update: Hi-Scorin' Petals

Hi! DEAD PETALS 1.1.10 is out, which serves as a sort of preview for 1.2.0! It's on the way. It won't be too much different than what you see here; I'm just giving myself one final chance to make some major changes to how things work.

There are so many tiny changes and fixes, but the big changes include a scoring system and Custom Games. Let's start with the latter.

Custom Games allow you tweak a bunch of parameters, such as number of enemies, overall difficulty, even change parameters of the player shot. There's lots to do and it lets you create a customized challenge you can share with friends. The original idea was to be able to share it via link, but some (reasonable) security measures made on the part of itch.io regarding iframes prevents this. So you get your game code like this:

You can a custom game code code by selecting "LOAD FROM CUSTOM GAME LINK" and pasting this code into the box. So if you're Too Good at the game already, you can invent your own Lunatic Mode and save it! Conversely, you can also turn down the difficulty and length of the game. This is great if you are not used to these types of games and want some practice! Or just want to chill out with 99 health and constant hyper. No judgement.

The next big change is the addition of a scoring system. There's a lot going on, and it's subject to change before I integrate it with any online leaderboard API, but it works like this:

• Quick kills net you extra points, as well as a bonus "big gem" which counts as 2 little gems. There is a sound queue for a successful quick kill. The quicker the kill, the higher the points.
• Finishing a wave nets you points as well, and you get bonus points for finishing the wave quickly. If you "no-miss" (meaning you don't take damage) on a wave, the wave bonus will get a 3x multiplier. 2x if you happen to take 1 hit, and no multiplier bonus for anything after that.
• Boss waves finish when you grab the boss item! So chase it down and make a decision quick if you want that quick wave bonus.
• Using a hyper starts a chain multiplier. Keep your hyper going between rounds to keep building your chain. You can do this by strategically leaving some gems on the screen, or extending it by grabbing a hyper boss item if it happens to drop. Losing your hyper or getting hit will reset your chain.

If you create a custom game, it will keep track of your high score on the title screen, but will reset your high score if you restart the game. Your "default mode" high score is saved, however!

I am loving all the feedback I am getting. I sincerely appreciate it.

I wanted to personally thank some other devs here on itch.io who I've already learned a lot from. Maybell, the creator of Satryn — which, if you like this game, you really owe it to yourself to play Satryn. It's twin-stick shooter with highly saturated colors (sound familiar?) with just an absurd amount of polish. The free version has all the trimmings of the Steam version minus the leaderboards and achievements.

Crow's Nest is another dev here on itch that has a whole lineup of addictive shmups/games with many bullets — most recently, Karasu Meltdown which is probably their best work so far. CrowsNest introduced me to whole communities of shmup enthusiasts which has just been so much fun for me. My game would not be not be the same without the influence of either of these people, for sure.

There are many people I am leaving out so, in general thank you to the many people who left reviews on Newgrounds or played the game at all. I'm wicked excited to share whatever game I'll make next!