HDog Alpha 0.801 (Gamma-Ray) is here, featuring new bosses, new music, new end-game content and a lot of small tunage

Oh no, that took four months. I got distracted presenting the Game at the Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival, but other than that the new bosses simply needed a long time to design, properly implement, test and tune. During the process I started to grow more and more appreciative of the good old carrier boss. That one exists for almost a year now and had a lot of time  for feedback to bleed into its design. The new bosses will need that time in the wild too in order to really settle in their place. The old bosses are now the boss pool for zone one and later zones get progressively smaller boss pools. Zone one has four possible bosses, zone two has three and so on.

Like a boss, you know like a real boss in a real videogame

That said I think the new bosses start out a step above the original three. They differ in a few ways:
- New bosses are less reliant on attachments. They still have parts you can shoot off in order to weaken their performance, but they all have some attacks that they can carry out regardless.
- They have attack phases they switch between. Some of the previous bosses already evolved during the fight, but the new ones will generally switch up their attack patterns a lot more and carry out more complex maneuvers. The final boss has ten different attacks for example.
- They use the level structure in new ways. You'll fight near the top clouds, alongside a vertical space tether or inside a larger enemy.
- The new bosses pressure you way more and in new ways. Some deny areas with mines, other force you into jumps with unblockable photon attacks.

The aforementioned final boss also comes with a new zone where it can hide in, the underground Command System. Right now it's populated with existing late game enemies but I want to flesh it out a bit more at some point.

After over two years of meeting every other month or so (sitting around drinking and talking about synthesizers) the Hyperspace Soundtrack now finally nears completion. The new build features six new themes used for specific zones and bosses. There are also place holders for the title theme and the final boss theme. Four more tracks are still coming.

That is it for HDog Ace Access 0.801 Gamma Ray. Please continue to let me know if you encounter any errors. You can contact me on Dicord too now: https://discord.gg/xP8pyrC The next update (Radio) will focus on wave goal variety and loot choices. If you want to track my progress you can check out the games public dev Trello: https://trello.com/b/JEMcU3rX/hyperspace-dogfights-development

Cheers!
Stefan – Sleeper Games