icepam - wow, quite the resolution you got there! What's your graphics card if you don't mind sharing? Just be wary that not all users will be able to have such large images and there is a small risk of a crash if that is the case. You may want to put in some contingency plan, perhaps export a smaller image first and then try a bigger one. In StuffGEN I can afford to experiment since it lets you save and load things, but in a closed system it might be a risk.

And StuffGEN is basically all done by hand, it doesn't use any plugins except for Paster so far (and some of my shaders).

Best bet is to use sprite font anyway - drawing the standard vector fonts takes a lot of resources and can kill the framerate on lesser devices.

Added a slightly different version that skews and bends (which looks more natural in most cases):

It's obviously called Skend and has been added to the repo.

I just drew it to illustrate the idea, Naji. There's no usable stuff in there as is.

I would like to add in a hidden damage feature.

How about a counter which:

Every tick If > 0 then = -dt

If overlapping damage object = +dt*100

If > 100 die. Adjust the ratio of overlapping damage and you got your error margin.

Looks neat otherwise.

Since the oldest bullet would probably have either the lowest zorder or the lowest UID you could sort by either and pick the first object (Pick nth instance action) for example.

With all the talk about C3 coming some time in the future, I have been thinking about how this "visual" coding could be taken further. Here are some ideas (the visuals are just to illustrate the idea):

We could have much the same properties as now, but change the way they can be set - not with behaviours, but with modular "controllers" - since most behaviours can be sorted by either what they effect or what values they produce. Click the little plug and a panel opens...

You could pick a controller and link it to any property that accepts a value - perhaps even link several controllers to do what would take plenty of actions and variables in one click.

Here's an example - if you want a sprite to rotate, for example, add a cycle controller to it with a range of 0-360 and time. Link the same to opacity and the sprite will fade out and then jump back to full opacity.

Or you could use the usual control options and, for example, link it to size with a ratio - so the sprite kinda stretches a little while moving. Enable and disable them as usual behaviours.

Well, just my 2 cents and 4 images - perhaps something Ashley could consider.

I know someone mentioned Skew.. that would be great to see

If you're looking for other shaders to try, how about skew?

Did Somebody say "skew"? Somebody did!

For when that texture just cannot stand straight. As with Flag I base the "logic" of the shader around C2's approach to angles and object bases - so if our base is left-center and then we rotate an item upwards so it stands "upright" the skew happens on the vertical axis while it is "sideways". Just check the .capx, it's simple, really.

That little jitter is my attempt at "realism" in grass. There's also another version coming with a slightly different behaviour.

Added to the distro.

Tried with mouse and keyboard, since it's all I have here. Seems like fairly standard twin stick shooter fare, but the movement of the ship seems lacking a little - there's no inertia, it just stops and goes which feels a little weird (or perhaps it's a little slow for such direct controls).

Also, this has nothing to do with the controls, but top-down graphics on a sideways scroller just feel REALLY weird.