Trying out a developer stream.

[ 2025-06-12 21:50:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

I am pleased to announce that Local Cooperative Multiplayer has been added to Cosmic Destroyer!

Device Mapping

When choosing a game mode from the Main Menu, players can now select Co-Op and will be given the opportunity to choose which devices each player would like to control their ship. This functionality provides flexibility to support multiple devices for users that want to use non-standard setups like bearclaw. During development some very unique setups were tested including one with 2 gamepads, two keyboards and a mouse all working at the same time on one player - and another gamepad on the 2nd player.
Each player can select their favorite ship and ready-up to jump into the game. Both players can select the same ship if they would like, there are no limitations.

Multiplayer Gameplay

Players have their own store of three lives and three continues, and all stats and scores are separate. When a player has consumed all of their lives they can continue by simply pressing the Action button, provided they have continues left to spend. If both players happen to game over at the same time, the standard Game Over screen will be shown to prompt the last player to continue. This screen is also shown if all lives and continues have been exhausted for both players. Flair on the ships for each player is colored to match the Player Flag - Player 1 is Red and Player 2 is Blue. This color is also used in the UI HUD indicators in the upper left and upper right, respectively. The boss health indicator has been moved to be positioned at the top of the screen between both HUD elements and should be out of the way.

Device Disconnections

If a device which is currently mapped to a player is disconnected during play, the game will automatically pause. A notification message such as "Playstation Controller has been disconnected" will be displayed on the screen when this occurs. Generally whenever a player uses the pause functionality only that player can unpause or exit gameplay, but in cases of input device disconnection control may switch to the other player to prevent players from getting stuck having to force-quit due to input device issues.

Other notes and limitations

This mode currently does not allow for any High-Scores to be earned and is purely for having fun with your friends locally or using Steam's "Play with Friends" feature, provided a good network connection. Local leaderboards for co-op may be added in the future if there is interest. Do note that split keyboard setups using one device across multiple players is not currently supported, mostly due to an engine limitation.

New Story Intro and Tutorial Dialogue

Captain Gerson now announces the mission's situation report to you with a virtual briefing before the game starts. The whole team is caught off guard by the initial attack, still the insight and information he provides offers context as to the situation around the Grid 38 Mining Facility and the attack on Shipyard 7. Sable, the ace pilot run the new pilot orientation tutorial, and you'll no doubt see more of her throughout the game. This also includes an ominous new backing track and new dialogue audio effects that really capture that retro feel. As development continues and we get closer to release there will be more information to share and new characters to meet. Although I want to be careful not to spoil anything by revealing too much before the final game release, either!

[ 2025-06-03 23:47:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

From the beginning of development Steam Deck has been the testing device of choice, and so it only makes sense to do everything to ensure that the game plays well on the Steam Deck both from a control and performance standpoint. Steam Deck, Xbox, Playstation DualSense and DualShock, Keyboard, and Keyboard-emulated Arcade controller sticks (Specifically the X-Arcade Tankstick) are already tested and working in Cosmic Destroyer. In addition to other major controller support, Steam Deck requirements are something that is being taken seriously to make sure all the controls work seamlessly. Switching between tapping on the screen or using the joystick buttons or touchpads should just work out of the box in Cosmic Destroyer. The game has it's own control remapping features for the major actions, and these are largely for button mappings and to support arcade stick controllers which operate through keybindings (X-Arcade sticks, etc.). If you need to use Steam Input you can, but you likely won't have to unless you have a non-standard controller (Xbox, Playstation DualShock and DualSense have been tested to work via USB and Bluetooth). If you want to bear-claw between two devices this should mostly work, but efforts have been focused on ensuring things like keyboard+mouse work this way, and Steam Deck controls work when switching between touch screen and joystick. As the game has no text input required, other than the score screen which uses the classic arcade input entry - there has been no need to use an on-screen keyboard prompt.

[ 2025-05-18 04:09:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Since the initial announcement of Cosmic Destroyer going on Steam earlier this week, my focus has been getting a public demo ready for release for players to try it out. In order for that to really work, players need to be able to configure the game so that it can run properly on their systems. That means that players at the very least need options for display and controls. Building these option menus and functionality, while vastly improving performance have been the focus of all development effort this week. Option menus have been added to Cosmic Destroyer to allow players to customize their experience, remap controls and adjust audio and video options. This also includes the addition of a Training Mode for learning the game and the stage layouts, like enemy, power up and destructible object's spawn locations. This is the first of many game modes, expect many more in the coming months as Cosmic Destroyer blasts off towards launch.

Training Mode

This mode provides the player with unlimited continues and bombs, and starts the player out with maximum power level, secondary weapons (missiles, etc.) and option drones. When starting a game in Training Mode, the player will be allowed to choose from any starting stage in the final game. Training Mode play-throughs cannot earn achievements or register a high score. A "Training Mode" message callout and watermark are added to the screen.

Options

The following option panels have been added accessible from the main menu.

Game

General game options not related to the current game session/mode are found here

• Show hit box - shows a brightly colored box exactly matching the size and position of the hit box on the player at all times. This is rendered on top of all other content, even the UI.
• Show Hints - the game often prompts players "Shoot" or "Pick up" the first time they encounter certain objects like cores to shoot to open doors or destroy bosses. This is helpful for new players but can be turned off here.
• Show Tutorials - the first stage involves a section that will wait for player input and introduce a wave of enemies slowly before continuing. This slow progressing section can be disabled here
• Arcade Marquee - A video of gameplay is shown after short time to prevent screen-burn-in and showcase the gameplay. In the future this footage will be replaced with mix of recent high score replays from the player and the top replays from leaderboards.

Video

No game is complete without proper video options. The game is intended to be always run at 16:9 resolution, and letterbox / pillarbox is displayed to fill the screen while maintaining a consistent game experience and fair play area to all players regardless of display configuration.

• Display Mode - options include Windowed Fullscreen, Fullscreen and Windowed
• Resolution - your monitor's resolutions and refresh rate variations can be selected here
• V-Sync - Vertical sync smooths screen tearing when game and monitor refresh speeds do not match
• Brightness - Simple gamma brightness adjustment.
• Quality - (This section is coming soon as it needs a few visual improvements for quality presets) includes options to reduce particle quality such as distortion effects, or reduce particle counts for systems with low-end GPUs which struggle with overlapping transparencies.

Audio

We hope you always want to play Cosmic Destroyer at full blast in a loud arcade - but also recognize you might want to play your own music or duck the audio for streaming.

• Main - Main volume of all sound
• SFX - sound effects such as weapons and explosions
• Voice - announcements such as "Power Up" and "Game Over"
• Music - music, set to however much synthwave you can handle!

Control

Here you can remap your controls inside the game. Provided are Primary and Secondary mappings with the defaults set to Keyboard and Gamepad bindings. Steam's Mapping should handle scenarios for mapping through that method as well, but provided here to aid with setups such as Keyboard mapped arcade controllers and other customizations. One last nerdy development note on performance - it's always been a deal-breaker any time the game drops below 60FPS for any reason. It's a "drop everything and fix whatever is causing the slowdown" moment. It is particularly important in these types of games which simulate at their own internal tick of 60FPS. This must be done to ensure reliable movement, collisions, and in the end - scoring. This week, I've also gone through and deeply researched every memory allocation and process time and radically optimized for the smoothest experience possible, to get the game running well even on slower machines. Glad to say that currently, the frame update uses exactly 0 bytes of heap allocation - so NO garbage collection necessary, which avoids random frame drops. On a decent gaming PC I've pushed into well over 200FPS - even when forcing the logic to fully update every single frame. That's good news for anyone who appreciates a smooth gaming experience!

[ 2025-05-11 04:15:25 CET ] [ Original post ]