This version sees the introduction of one new ship model (the 2HP, 8 Speed ship) and the beginning of work on levels. The way levels currently work is that you have to reach max speed, then survive for 5 seconds without hitting any X panels. After you’ve survived 5 seconds, ramps will start to appear.
Hitting a ramp will launch your ship into the center of the tunnel, where it will boost past any remaining panels in the level, then land at the end. At the moment you just sit and hover for a bit until the next level starts, but there will eventually be a transition between the levels.
Right now, switching levels does nothing but give you a break for a few seconds. When complete, each level will add to a point multiplier and increase the difficulty.
There are some bugs with this new stuff. Most importantly, when launching off a ramp you won’t always zip past the remaining panels. I’m not sure exactly why (haven’t stared at it long enough), but it’s somewhat minor for now. There are also some issues with the new UI elements (sticking around longer than they should), but again, it’s fairly minor.
The 5-second no-X requirement may be a bit strict, so I might have to make it “survive 5 seconds”. It was originally 10 seconds, but while trying to capture those shots above, I died so many times I decided to cut it in half.
If you want to check out the new stuff, try playing with the “Turbo” mutator on – since you start at full speed the 5-second countdown begins immediately.
EDIT
Yeah, I think the no-X requirement is a bit tough… That will probably be coming out later. There’s also seems to be significantly more bombs in this version. That will change, too… Once I add in the difficulty changes between levels.
And it looks like the countdown timer starts with the level, even without turbo mode.