So I started working on the laser effect for Baron von Badass. I did not expect it to take so long!

I started with the animation. After much fiddling I figured out a nice way to animate things in code. Fortunately this is reusable, so any future animations should be much easier to create.

Then I went a bit overboard making the sprite for the laser turret, giving it directional shading despite being drawn only 15 pixels tall. All up, the sprites for the laser took a bit less than a day.

And then I went to work on adding a sound to the laser beam! My goodness, who would have thought that it would be so difficult. As it turns out, it was. It’s not easy to fit a laser-charging sound effect, a laser firing sound effect, and an explosion sound effect all into 1.5 seconds. Especially when you have to make it not-annoying, for when it loops in-game.

But at least it’s done now and I’m happy with the result. I’ve uploaded the first video of Captain Stretchy-Arms, demonstrating the laser effect:

~

You can download this version of the game here.