I've just posted a new release of Chromavaders!  You can play it in-browser or download it for desktop right here.

The biggest change is that I've removed the lives; you can now die arbitrarily many times, but garbage pushes up from the bottom each time you do.

This is based on feedback I've gotten from playtesting over the course of several weeks.  These are the main conclusions I drew:

• Nobody had gotten a game over by filling the grid; they always lost their lives.
• The game didn't feel tense enough; you die, then the game's over.  It felt anti-climactic.
• As a result, there was more motivation to cautiously shoot enemies and survive than there was to clear blocks.

I'd had this on my plate for a while but was busy preparing for Play NYC.  But now that that's squared away, what I need now is more feedback, especially from those who've already played the game (hopefully you?).

There are other items of feedback I've gotten as well, most of which pertain to the difficulty balance.  I held off on those because I wanted to see how this fundamental change would affect the difficulty before putting too much time into tweaking it.

In the mean time, these three main items are at the front of my to-do list:

• Experimenting with a secret new game mechanic, consistent with other playtesting feedback I've received
• Improving my build process so it's easier to make new releases
• Small niceties and polish that I don't expect will need a lot of revisions

Check back soon for more about the development of Chromavaders!  Or play it now!  Preferably both (but if you can only do one, the latter).