YEAR 3 - BA3b - Arcade mode & New Bullets

I worry about the marketability of the game given that it only works with 2 players at the moment. I concluded that if I want people to buy the game and not ask for a refund and/or berate me on twitter I should focus on making more content for the individual player. I don't know whether or not I want to go as far as making a full metroidvania again but I might make some more levels in the same style as the tutorial.
Arcade mode is a re-imagining of the very first version of the game, even using the same shooter asset. One of the coolest things about Alien::Qualifier is the ability to navigate around bullets in mid air so for arcade mode I slowed down the speed of the enemies bullets to 1/3 of the normal speed to put the player in the situation you see above where they're jumping around, tracking and calculating their jumps so as to avoid the enemies bullets. It feels really good to pull off.

The bullet knockback affects this game mode interestingly. The player has to be vary careful about shooting in the air when there are lots of bullets because the knockback can make movement difficult to predict but the knockback can also be used by advanced players to move backwards whilst facing in the same direction or to quickly push themselves out the path of a bullet.

This version of the arcade has reflecting turned off because it would make the game much too easy.

I like the design of the encounter because it gives the player the choice of where they want to shoot the enemy but only to a degree as they have to hit all 4 targets before any respawn. This forces the player to make use of all their abilities as they try to reach the highest point to shoot the top target, which is always difficult.

At some point during development I changed the hover bar to recharge slowly on the ground rather than instantly resetting but I forgot to write a post about it (I also made the jumps recharge slowly but removed it again because it was frustrating and difficult to track).

The slow hover bar recharge is really interesting in this game mode because the player is encouraged to spend so much time in the air, managing hover bar charge becomes really important and sometimes the player has to spend time making skillful dodges on the ground in order to recharge the hover as much as possible.

This game is actually one of my favorite things to do in the game and I'd like to add more game modes like this.

Also I changed the bullet design to shapes rather than colors due to the colors being difficult to tell
apart, especially for colorblind people. The new top tier bullet looks really big and threatening; It's clear it cannot be reflected. That said, another mechanic I added was the power reflect, where a frame perfect reflect can actually reflect a top tier bullet and at a higher speed. It's something I borrowed from Super Smash Bros Melee It's ridiculously hard to pull off though and is only intended to create lucky instances for players and as a very high skill more for advanced player.

I really love how it looks like the bullet knocks out the characters teeth when it hits (Also, the red eyes are invincibility frames (i frames) )