Progress on the first ally -- the Ghosts of Kronstadt 👻
The ally mechanic is Gibraltar's analog of a "superweapon" in a traditional shmup -- a temporary, unlockable, limited, very powerful effect that helps you clear a screen. Here's Star Fox's version:
Allies in Gibraltar are unlocked by rescuing friendly boats, prototyped in an earlier post. I am still unsure if this mechanic is too complicated, but playtesting will tell.
The Ghosts of Kronstadt is a pirate ship that ignores the terrain and moves towards the Orca and encircles it. It has a vision circle and three cannons on each side. If an enemy enters its vision circle the ship will fire a ghostly cannonball from its cannons that also ignores terran and only collides with enemies.
They are inspired by the very real Kronstadt uprising in 2912 where anarchist sailors in the port city of Kronstadt rose up against early the Bolshevik communist regime which was taking a direction they disagreed with. The idea in Gibraltar is that allies are comrades from past and present you can call on for aid in your struggle against capital and empire today. One of the things that draws me to this mechanic is that its a great vehicle to insert leftist memes and history into this game. Also the name "Ghosts of Kronstadt" fucking rips.
The image above is the crew of the Petropavlovsk in 1917. The flag reads "Смерть буржуямъ" / "Death to the bourgeois".
This is a locomotion test with visualizations for the vision circles and the cannons to make sure I got the math right. Next step is firing the cannons 🏴☠️💥🚨