I started a run-n-gun in Picotron. So far, basic platforming and shooting is there. Started an electric slime enemy that chases you and fires electric projectiles. It can hop off walls and drops through floors to pursue you. Spawning is currently RNG-based until better enemy waves and rank are implemented.

More progress, new weapon types added:
- The seeking orb shot is low-damage, moves fast, tracks enemies, and bounces off walls.
- The magical staff spawns passthrough magical blocks that you can stand on and also functions as a close-range high-damage attack.

I also tweaked the foreground clouds to have less contrast and adjusted the far bg and close fg to scroll slower.

- Added short-range forward dash. No iframes, cancels vertical speed and locks into forward movement. It can be used in-air, and has a very slight upward arc. It is mapped to Down + Jump without conflicting with ability to drop through passthrough floors with Down.
- added a high jump with more vertical reach but reduced horizontal speed, by pressing up + jump
- slowed far bg, added camera-relative parallax
- moved level down, HUD overlap is reduced at expense of more vertical scroll

I implemented an alternate shot for each weapon type that occurs if you hold up + shoot. It changes the shot properties but not its damage:
- Fireball up-shot does a 45-degree shot, moves slower, reduced fire rate, shorter range.
- Orb up-shot does a slow circular sweep in front of the player, no seeking.
- Magic staff up-shot attacks up, spawns a block above you.

Added drops, fully random for now. Going to remove weapon-cycling (except as debug) so main gameplay controls are dpad + 2-button.

- lots of mild tweaks to timing/speed of attacks and enemy timing
- item that creates a shadow clone/option that follows your path and duplicates your attacks
- item that lets you move faster
- currently these effects are time-limited and stack, might make them permanent but swappable instead
- is this becoming too gimmicky?
- unavoidable hits when lots of enemies, wondering if I make an attack token/queue system
- maybe I need to shift focus to making new enemies and stage layouts for a bit