· Mega DriveMega Drive: the V2 campaign, from 0.0.2 to 0.0.11
In a few builds the Mega Drive test grew quite a bit: from a test level to a small campaign, "V2". The six screens have been reworked, a few adversaries appeared, there's a whole new presentation and a good deal of graphic polish. The game logic stays faithful to the original. The rest is better discovered by playing.
The idea, really, is a design experiment: I'm trying to throw in a bit of every classic platformer ingredient, the ones the genre has shown a thousand times, and see how they blend together. Not to reinvent the wheel, but to find out what happens when you knead them all into the same game.
1-2 "Rhythm and Lead", a stone world at dusk, gun in hand, a few robots and a planet on the horizon. 2-2 "One of them lies", a steel world at night, among moon, drones and platforms that light up.
Gameplay. All six screens have been redone into a small fixed-screen campaign: you collect stars to unlock the flag, and there's more vertical layout. A gun showed up, and once picked up it stays for the whole run, and with it the first enemies, to shoot down or dodge. There are lives and a game over, but the first lying flag doesn't cost one: that's the free lesson. World access codes are back, along with intro cards for each world and the usual wry lines scattered here and there.
Presentation. A short silent opening cutscene, which can be skipped, opens the game; then a graphic title screen, with a big logo and a language choice.
Graphics and animation. Each world now has its own character: a warm stone one against a cold, lit metal one, each with different backdrops, sky, planets and stars. The spikes are bigger and clearer, the fake blocks crumble with a bit of drama, the lights come on softly, and the animations of the character, the stars and the flag are more polished. The figure and the gun were redrawn too.
Audio. A few new sound effects for shots and pickups; the music stays as it was. And as always, the C64 version keeps running intact alongside.
Below, the updated ROM: it runs on emulators and flashcarts.