Developer Log: Firing Up Stellar Assault
Stellar Assault is a love letter to the classic arcade shoot-'em-ups (shmups) of the 90s. We focused on bullet-hell mechanics, massive boss fights, and a pulsing synth soundtrack.
Bullet Hell Optimization
A true bullet hell requires thousands of projectiles on screen simultaneously. To achieve this in JavaScript, we completely bypassed standard DOM elements and built a highly optimized Object Pool for the bullets, rendering them as raw pixel data on the Canvas to maintain a rock-solid 60 FPS.
Boss AI
The bosses in Stellar Assault use state-machine AI to cycle through complex attack patterns. We designed a custom scripting language specifically for defining bullet patterns, allowing us to rapidly iterate on intricate, geometric bullet spreads that challenge the player's dodging skills.