Day 17: Death Gas

In a 2019 SPACE.com article, it was noted that carbon monoxide may indeed be a biosignature, or indicator of extraterrestrial life.

“…We could expect high carbon-monoxide abundances in the atmospheres of inhabited but oxygen-poor exoplanets orbiting stars like our own sun,” — Timothy Lyons, a professor of biogeochemistry at the University of California, Riverside (UCR)

Here, on earth, carbon monoxide attaches itself to hemoglobin and prevents blood from carrying oxygen — leading to asphyxiation. Now, assuming that the pilot of our beloved player ship is at least human-adjacent, it seemed fitting to make a negative pickup full of CO to damage the player, seeing as space is chock full of the gas. If collected, it subtracts a life.

I created this sprite for the CO negative pickup.

Death from Above 2079.

I’m currently working on the next requirement of Phase II, which entails creating a new enemy with a unique projectile and movement. Conceptually I have a spaceship that drops plasma bombs which explode after three seconds. Excited to showcase them here!