This stage is the Energy Zone, a world 9 stage based off the 5th & 6th level of Contra1. The player fights Contra and Covenant here, along with a number of nasty stage hazards and effects. The stage won't be too long, but brutal. It ends with an extended showdown on a giant elevator.
A soundtrack has already been chosen. No song suggestions please.
Many of the screenshots come from a tech demo, which is the only explanation you're going to get why there's no player/hud, or what the colored squares are for.
Here are some Contra1 arcade screenshots to give you an idea what the stages tiles look like. Enemies will be somewhat different:
Here's one of the stage hazards, extendo claws. They can be set up with custom timings, allowing for custom organized patterns to be setup. Their length is also customizable:
The Elevator battle: At the end of the stage you enter a giant moving elevator. Before you reach the top you must face 3 challenges:
Assault rooms: The first challenge involves hallways in the background the elevator passes by. Troops can be seen back there. Red troops sometimes shoot at the player. White ones sometimes leap into the foreground trying to pounce on the player:
Bomb Man: Bomb Man is the stage mini boss. He attacks you after all the assault rooms have passed by. He starts off with his standard AI, but midway through the battle some platforms begin to pass by the elevator. He uses those platforms to his advantage. Here's some early screen of Bomb Man:
RoboCorpse: RoboCorpse, a famous Contra boss, is the stages final challenge. He has all his AI styles from Contra3, though he applies some of them a tad bit differently. Also instead of crashing though a wall he climbs up the elevator shaft after you. I even added rotation to his backarms to enhance the climbing animation:
After you beat Robocorpse the elevator exit shows up. How convienant:
Here's a screenshot of what the whole elevator system looks like in the level editor. As you can see almost all the sprite and art effects are generated by code:
