The final level is about halfway done! I put in a bunch of overtime this week (around 50 hours total?) so this post may be a little light. It’s about Arcade Mode, which is returning (obviously!) But I’ve got a few improvements and changes planned which I’ll discuss briefly here.

Probably the biggest change will be health pickups! Every level has a semi-secret area at the beginning that will contain them. I’m speaking future-tense because I haven’t implemented them yet, but here’s an example of what I mean.

Bleed 2 has at least twice as many bosses as the original and it feels outrageous asking players to do that in one life bar. On the other hand, I’d like to reward players with mad skills and daring, so collecting health will probably come with a competitive disadvantage, like a time penalty.

There’s also a lot of unlockables in Bleed 2, like powerful characters, weapons and air-dash styles, inevitably leading to preferred loadouts that not everybody will have access to. Because of this, I’m thinking of having two Arcade Mode categories, like “New Game” and “New Game+”.

“New Game” Arcade Mode can be played from the very beginning and gives all players the same, pure challenge using only the default abilities/character/weapons. Pros can go nuts in “New Game+” finding crazy exploits and overpowered combos with everything they’ve unlocked. Plus, I enjoy the possibility that someone thirsty for a challenge could choose Arcade Mode to be how they initially experience the game, so it’s nice having it unlocked at the start.

Lastly: in Arcade Mode, I’ll do my best to truncate or remove the in-game cutscenes whenever possible. I want it to be as fast and replayable and arcadey as I can!

Oh, and the replays of each run being attached to their leaderboard entries, but that one’s not for sure (not even close), just a fun project I want to try if I have time.

That’s all for now — it’s break time for me! Hope y’all had a very happy Halloween!