Snorms episode 2 is now out as a pre-release on snorms.com.

Desura users need to use the “Connect” button on my game page to access it.

Here are the most notable changes:

• 16 new maps
• 7 new monsters
• 4 new weapons (rifle, grenade launcher, double shotgun, bouncing laser)
• Music

And the other changes:

• Turret now turns slowly (depending on their level)
• Uzi is now more like a minigun, it will quickly fire a few bullets, then reload
• Translations: you can now switch language, only English and French are available at the moment
• Sight of view enhancements: the monster will less see you when they are not supposed to, and player will less see things behind walls
• Adjusted check points price at high level (a bit more expensive than before, almost no changes for episode 1)
• Explosions will no longer impact player/monsters when they are behind a wall
• Colored doors, to be used with keys (no buttons needed anymore)
• Damage booster power up, will greatly increase damage for a short time
• Improved 2 monsters at higher level (they can get a new attack)
• You can now sell weapons you don’t want (complete the level again to get a new one @ low level)
• Added secret passages ! (and counters)
• Added counter for money boxes when you pick one
• Added new resolution 1280×720 (720p)

I still don’t know how I could integrate higher resolution, problems are:

• If I keep the 1:1 pixel ratio, the viewport will be too high, changing gameplay (and impacting performance also) as the player would see too far away
• I could then stretch output, losing 1:1 ratio, but with the quickest algorithm in Java the result is awfull
• and with the nicest algorithm in Java, frame drop is very very high

So I think the only solutions would be

• Try to implement my own stretching algorithm, but I doubt I can make better than Java (and 2:1 ratio could be used only at very high resolution)
• Try to get Opengl to stretch output, but I would need to change a lot my engine

So I won’t plan anything for now…

There could still be some balance problems (difficulty and/or money cost/gain) that will be corrected for the final episode 2 release.

I also had some problems when playing multiple games without quitting the game (lags every 5 seconds or so, under Windows and Linux), I have corrected some memory leaks that I hope will correct the problem (but it’s quite hard to test, as I usually quit the game after playing a map to make adjustments, and I don’t usually play the full episode in one shot).

I think release should be ready during the week as there were not so many problems during the first phase.

*edit:* update to 0.1b334 , balance update, small bugs correction, and added a temporary invincibility when re-spawning from a checkpoint