Also, what are the smileys for?

And why are there two of the latter one?

The first one is an extra life. The second one is a nasty surprise that you'll need to react quickly to the first time you encounter it.. There are two of the second one as one is the untriggered version and the other is the triggered version

Oh and sorry Kerm I forgot to mention, it just saves the data in binary files, as then I compress certain levels together before linking them as an .83p or .8xp file

I've now just started serious bug testing and doing general game testing so that I can balance the game.

I'm happy to report that 99.9% of "required" coding is complete. That is to say, if bug testing & balancing were complete, the game would be ready for release.

However, there is still one more optional extra that I have in mind that I'll experiment with as well.

I've finally been spending some time playing on my actual TI-83 & TI-84+ calculators as opposed to WabbitEmu, and I'm really happy with how it looks, particulary on the TI-84+ LCD.

The last few days have been spent on a few asthetics, such as: level exploding animation when the self destruct timer expires; some nice little fade in & fade out transitions; as suggested by Merth I've included the descending deck lift animation between levels; plus a few other very minor things.

I could post a couple of screenshots, although the fade in / fade out contrast effects don't quite work exactly right on WabbitEmu as they do on calc - they're close, but it's much more seamless on an actual calc screen

Might I ask that you give it a try on PindurTI or jsTIfied (they have very similar LCD physics implementations) to see if that helps? Minor detail, though; this sounds great! I can't wait for a public beta, if you're planning on having one before the 1.0 release. And glad to hear about the extras, as extras are always good.

Oh cool, I'll give those a try on the weekend sometime and see how it looks

I have been considering releasing a public beta, which I will probably do soon. It will most likely just be a 2 level release or something just for people to tinker with and see what they think and report any bugs that they come across.

Fingers crossed, I haven't found anything major yet. I know of a minor enemy trigger bug which will be easy to fix.

A 2 level beta version should be available in the next couple of days!

Ooooh, I'm excited!

I like the new smiley sprites!

A beta version with the first 2 levels of the game is now available here:

http://www.jvti.org/files/programs/ab5/ab5beta.zip

If anyone finds any bugs, I'd be most appreciative if they're mentioned here (or to me via email) so that I can rectify them

I tested with the MirageOS version using Doors CS and its HomeRun feature and found it to run smoothly. I noticed an inconsistency in controls in that [2nd] selected an item in the main menu, while [ENTER] advanced past a screen of text; that stuck in my craw. Gameplay seemed fluid and fun. I was caught off-guard by enemies re-spawning when their area went off-screen and returned to back on-screen, but I got used to it. I seemed to repeatedly empty my health bar; is there an indication somewhere of how many lives I have left?

Thanks for the feedback Kerm!

I'll change the [ENTER] key to [2nd] on those screens and see how it works. The [ENTER] key was something that I carried across from ABIV, just because in ABIV the transitions between screens was instantaneous, and often [2nd] would still be held down from gameplay which would cause the user to accidentally skip a text screen. However, now that transitions are a bit more advanced, with the progressive text printing, fade in & fade outs, etc. this might not be a problem anymore. Personally I would certainly prefer to have the [2nd] key being used more to save having to move the right hand down to [ENTER]

Yeah the enemies do continually respawn, which can be a bit of a challenge at first, but I think it's something that you pick up on fairly quickly as you start to learn the levels. Obviously if the difficulty is too hard, I can dial it back and take a few triggers out if needed.

If you press [MODE] during gameplay the pause screen comes up, and under the health bar on the left is the number of lives left

Edit: I've now changed the [ENTER] key to [2nd] in all instances, except for in the PAUSE screen. I've tried using [2nd] as the "return to game" button in the PAUSE screen, but 99% of the time you end up shooting when you go back to the game screen (due to direct key input).

So, I played it, and I liked the gameplay, but I kept running out of keys when I shouldn't have. Like, I had seven keys, went five doors, gained three keys in the process. I should have five keys left, but I'd only have three. I don't know if I just really really suck at counting, or if there's a bug with that, but I couldn't get past the first level...

I'll check the key count thing and make sure it's not buggy, thanks Merth!

I can definitely say that there aren't enough keys to open every door on the first level without either shooting some doors open (by blasting them repeatedly), or the "proper" thing to do would be to buy a key pack or two at the Intex computer console, which is in that little side corridor not too far from where you start.

That being said, I might add a couple of extra keys in those supply rooms that come off the bottom corridor. Also, I'll throw in a couple of arrows on the floor pointing towards the Intex computer so that users know that it's there

Ha! I didn't even think about buying keys or shooting the doors. I'll give that a try tonight and see how it goes!

Hey James, how have the last few weeks been for development?

Hey! Pretty good, I'm away with my band at the moment, hence the lack of posted updates, but I've still been working on it, and it's essentially finished. I'm currently playing it over and over and making minor changes here & there.

It will be released late September / early October

Great stuff, JamesV. I'll probably want to post Cemetech news about your project when you finish it, if you don't mind, since you were kind enough to involve us in the development process. Anything significant about your changes that you'd like to share with us?

Sure thing Kerm, that would be awesome

Nothing too major has been changed, just a few minor level & difficulty adjustments, found a couple of minor bugs, etc. Haven't come across any disastrous calculator killing bugs which is good news!

Ok so AB5 will be released sometime within the next week or so, I just have two minor glitches to iron out and it's done!

To celebrate, I put together this short video showing all my various attempts at porting Alien Breed to the TI range over the years. As you can see, it's changed a bit over the years!