Can’t stop the menu train, baby! While they’re not as adorable as the main menu, I created the level select and loadout menus this week!

 

Level Select

Here’s the new level select! I tried to make it reminiscent of a PVR menu — Bleed 2 has a minor ‘television’ motif going on. It’s less cute than the original Bleed’s level select, but it gets more information across with the level previews and high scores and stuff. Here’s a gif of it in action!

There’s a bit more going on than you might notice (or be able to tell from the compressed gif.) The level preview has a subtle static effect on top, and the preview images become slightly dark and fade in when you switch between levels — when left at full brightness, it’s really jarring to watch.

The level previews were pretty easy to make — I shrunk down the background assets for most levels and then touched them up to not look so nasty.

 

Loadout

I also worked on the loadout menu! I can’t call it the ‘weapon select’ menu any more, because you use it for more than selecting weapons.

Working on these menus also meant I had to start implementing save games (to record and display scores, to know what weapons are locked and unlocked, etc.) Save games are nowhere near fully implemented, but I got a good start! Anyways, here’s some weapon switching in action.

As promised way back when, you can select as many or as few weapons as you want to carry! Also seen here for (I believe) the first time is the katana-only weapon, which has a rapid-fire short-range flurry attack instead of pistol fire. Also also, now you get brief descriptions of each weapon and how it behaves, or a criteria for how to unlock it.

Changing air-dodges also works.

 

Transition

Finally, if you haven’t had enough gifs yet, I added a little intro/transition between the level select and starting the game! I don’t know if I’ll keep it — I’ll probably make it quicker at the very least — but here’s what I’m experimenting with right now.

You can also see the difficulty selection there! It goes by fast, but I like how it’s seamlessly incorporated into the level select.

Whew!