Yesterday was spent playing with the editor some more.
As the game and editor become more closely entangled, I'm finding lots of little extra tweaks that need to be made to the game, so that the editor can be that little bit more complex.

Here's a nice list of things you can currently tweak within the editor..

The start weapon (1-16 so far.. there are 16 forms of Basic weapon, and then the Super weapons on top. I've yet to add any Super weapons, yet, though!) and also how fast the weapon builds up... Basically meaning that, if you wanted to, you could ensure the player never actually changes their weapon in your level..

The initial wave layout (1-17.. from "An alien" to "OMG!WTF! LOTS OF ALIENS IN A CIRCLE!!") and how fast the layouts build up.

The initial Alien (1-6 as before, but additionally the breeds too..) and again, how fast they progress.

The randomness of alternative breeds, so that Red Bombas, Pink Spawns and Yellow Bonus aliens can all randomly appear within other basic breed type waves. Keeps things a bit more interesting when the Spawn type starts appearing at the basic levels..

That's your basic tweaks, and there's a few extras in there, too. You can also disable the progress for all the settings, and even the random breeds, to keep your level within strict rules. Should be plenty to keep the editor peeps busy.

I should mention, at this point, that I've actually reduced the Bomba alien quite a bit.

Previously, the Bomba would explode with a nice radial swirly blob, killing everything around it.... Including you!
If the Bomba ran up to you (which they tend to do!) and then exploded, you'd be too close, and die.
It was a teensy bit unfair, to say the least.
So, taking a leaf from Geometry Wars 2 (hey, why not!) I've turned the Bomba types into more of a "That gate thing" type of alien.
The Bombas still go boom, they just won't kill you.

And if you step on one, it also goes boom.

In basic terms, it means that in the middle of frantic action, you can stop shooting, run up to a flickering red guy, and blow everything up.

In complex terms, it means you can turn up the Randomness of Bombas, turn down the evolution of Aliens, Turn off weapons, and you've got yourself the lovely "Pacifism" mode from GW2.

Now, that's progress!

More to come.