Gradual Difficulty Scaling!

So, I'm back at it.

As many neat enemy and powerup ideas as I have, it's important to take time to address root issues in a game. In this case, it was inspired by a comment from my wife, who highlighted, after the addition of chained enemies, that it suddenly felt like the game had gone from "level one" to "level three" in difficulty. She made a good point—there weren't enough constraints on what showed up when, and that was only going to get worse!

So, I build a structure that handles interpolations, and applied it to enemy weights based on time played. This can be extended if I need to, which I probably will—special events, bosses, etc.—and allows the beginning of the game to focus on milder opponents, while as time progresses, more difficult opponents will show up. I'll be applying this, probably silently, to powerups soon too (no point in telling you about the same thing twice.)

The other advantage is that it will allow me to create a free-demo mode, because even for $2.99, it isn't reasonable to expect people to throw money and a project that they can't preview. Even since I produced the trailer, the game has come a very long way. I'm thinking a free two minutes of play before it comes to a close and requests a purchase, specifically for the web. Otherwise, you would start back at the beginning.

Everybody have fun!