New element: the fan.

It's been a while since a new element was introduced, and so I'm proud to present, the fan !

Seen in this screenshot on the left side is a red fan. Fans operate in a fairly obvious way. When active, they propel any pachinguy in their range upwards. When non active they do nothing. Fans present some interesting interactions with other elements of the game. For example : When the blue bridge above the fan is lowered, it blocks the fan's updraft, making the pachinguy fall onto the bridge. Retractable blocks affect the updraft in a similar manner. Triggers can now be activated from below, and so on.

On a technical level, the fan is the first time I've used animated sprites in pachinguys. (Both for the actual fan and the updraft animation, represented in this screenshot by the black w's). Their implementation in Andengine seems fairly straight forward and intuitive. So they easily integrated into the existing code.

Some infrastructure work has gone into the game. Mainly, we now have a layer system that allows me to keep tighter control of the order of drawing (anything on the bottom layer gets drawn first, then the second layer, etc..). I've also moved all the blocks into "block containers", which allow me to attach visual effects (like the updraft animation) to them. Those effects inherit their block's location but not its rotation, color, visibility etc.. This lays the ground work for more elaborate graphics to be added.

I still have another element in mind (one that really takes advantage of fans). And after that I will go back to designing levels. As my updraft w's plainly show, I need help when it comes to art. so I will also be looking for a graphics/art person.