Local co-op and a bunch of other stuff!

Local drop-in co-op multiplayer has arrived! It’s very basic for now and still a work in progress and needs a lot of testing, but it’s there. The second player can be controlled by the keyboard (arrow keys to move, Enter to beam, PageDown to cycle blueprint menu) or a second gamepad.

Also in this update:

• At the start of each level and during “prep time” phases, enemy trails are be shown from all spawn points to the nearest bases. This helps players strategically place turrets near paths or place movable items to block paths.
• Players are not spawned automatically at the start of a level; press any button to join. Workers will only get busy and phases will start only after the first player joined. This gives opportunity to the player(s) to review the map and possibly work out a strategy.
• When you drop a turret on top of a tower to install it, it slides in place instead of immediately “jumping” there.
• When a player starts picking up a movable item an autopilot takes over and aligns (moves) the quadcopter to the middle of the item. In the previous version it was the other way around: items were aligned to the middle of the quadcopter as the last stage of the beam-up.
• The quadcopter is now bound to the map and cannot move outside the edges.
• Tower radius is now shown by a filled circle instead of a bordered one.
• If you drop something on top of a decorations (at this point: flowers) it is crushed and destroyed like minor enemies.
• For touch controls, the “drop blueprint” button has been removed and a second a “cycle blueprint menu” button has been added in its place instead. To select a blueprint just press the beam button (just like on a keyboard, mouse or gamepad).
• Text UI updates are reduced for better performance.
• You can press L or “back / view” on the gamepad at any time to go back to the level selection menu.

We have a few major gameplay mechanics scheduled to be implemented, but right after those we’ll focus on balancing and level design since everything is too easy. Expect tougher enemies, harsher waves and adjusted resource values soon ;)