Screwed around a bit tonight, Soldier can now fire diagonally, and the Pogo tool now damages enemies. (It's-a me, Mario!)
Also did some tinkering with how Enemies call the "TakeDamage" function and made it public so I can mess with it.
EDIT: One thought about the diagonal firing. While it "feels good," I worry about this creating the same kind of problem that existed in Super Castlevania: other weapons become pretty pointless if your standard rifle can fire in any direction. Does a wave beam, spazer, or whatever really make a lot of difference if you are able to fire in six directions anyway?
Here's how I've currently mapped out the rifle shots. The idea is that you pick up "shots" and you can turn on zero, one, or two of them at any time to create a different weapon. There are four shot types: Power, Explosive, Loop, and Multi.
None selected - Short range, weak, straight line, goes through walls.
[Power]-------------------- Longer range, powerful, straight line, blocked by walls, has Fire-type.
[Explosive]--------------- Grenade-style projectile, falls down, explodes on walls or enemies, has Explode-type.
[Power]+[Explosive]--- Shotgun-style spray of fire, short range, spread, has Fire-type.
[Loop]---------------------- Loop around the player character like a shield, weak, blocks enemy, goes through walls, has Electric-type.
[Loop]+[Power]--------- Fires a circular-looping bullet, can go through multiple enemies, has Electric-type.
[Loop]+[Explosive]---- Fires a slow-moving,wave-beam style, explodes on walls or enemies, has Explode-type.
[Multi] --------------------- Spread-type, three bullets, goes through walls, has Cold-type
[Multi]+[Power]---------- Fires up and down spread (not middle), projectiles create wall-chasing fire where they strike, Fire-type.
[Multi]+[Explosive] ---- Single large bullet, straight line, explodes into spray of smaller bullets upon contact. Large bullet is Explode type, smaller are Cold-type.
[Multi]+[Loop] ----------- Fires an interlocking wave of four projectiles, get larger as they go out, Electric-type.
The types will give you a bit of an elemental advantage against certain enemies and interact with the environment in some places.
The thing is, I'm not sure how much experimenting the player will do if the initial weapons already let you fire in any direction you want.
Edited by C-Dawg, 16 August 2016 - 11:12 AM.