Neovember is a month in which I'm taking the engine from NeonPlat Raw, and playing about with it to create a bunch of different gameplay styles.
Once we're done, I'll bundle everything back into a package, and pop it up on all the different systems.

This week's experimental gameplay mode comes courtesy of Blockman. Not the hungry-pellet-eating version of Blockman, the classic platforming/collection form.
You start the game as you normally would, with you, some balls, and some bad guys.
There's also a small round "thing" on the left.
The aim is to grab a ball, throw it at a bad guy, and then smash the leftover bubble, same as always.
The thing is, however, you won't get ANY points for it.
None. Zip.. Nada!!

-=-=-

Instead, each time you collect an enemy-sphere, you earn a little gem, and must gather up a trail of gems, then lead them all to the little collection point.



It's a simple little Blockman/Flicky mechanic, and it works quite well, here.
The more you have on you, the more points you get, so it's a good idea to get a nice trail going before reaching the exit.
But one touch from an enemy, and you'll not only lose a life, you'll lose your trail of gems, too.
Arrgh!!

For the sake of your own sanity, I've opted to not make the gems "scare-able", like they are in Blockman/Flicky. With all the chaos onscreen, it's hard enough keeping track of yourself, without needing to worry about where all the enemies are in relation to your trail of gems.
But otherwise the mechanic works really well, with the game now being more about the risk/reward of opting to get one-more-gem, or simply heading for the collection point.

A fun new gameplay mode, I'm sure you'll agree. .. maybe.. !

You can Play NeonPlat Extreme : Test Two : Gems here, but it's only a HTML5 Browser based edition.
All editions will be collected together into a neat bundle at the end of the month.