After releasing two mediocre remakes of games that were high-tech back in 1982 I've finally decided to get back into Flash games with something original.

So, I have decided to prepare an entry for the flixel February contest. I've decided to make a shmup (Shoot 'em up) for this game. I'm going to try for something along the lines of the Touhou shooters like Perfect Cherry Blossom. The idea is simple: lots of bullets everywhere being fired in cool looking patterns. So far I've worked out the simple enemies and the bullet pattern firing. So now I'm working on a level editor.

Most flixel games are tile based. That is not the case for this genre. The levels are defined as time lines (for example enemies will come in at 1:30, 1:45, and 1:50 and all follow a path). Needing a good challenge I've set about at making this time line editor so that I can add enemies more easily. I'm hoping to have a beta posted on the dumping grounds by the end of next week so that I can get some feedback.

Since a lot of energy has gone into the shmup framework to power this game I am considering releasing the framework and level editor as open source tools so that other people can benefit from my work. So far this game has been pretty fun to make. I've been using the opportunity to study up on languages outside of my comfort zone of C++ and getting to know ActionScript 3.0 and C# better.

Wish me luck! I'll keep posting my progress here as I get further along.