First of all, THE news: Russell Kay has started talking about a XeO3 version on the Spectrum, and, believe me, listening about a multiplatform release would make me scream:”Any Zzap!64 around where to send our game? Where is one when you need it?”. His blog is here, and is now in the XeO3 gateway, I will root for him!
From the coding side, several bugfixes had been performed by Mike: a ghost sprite that occurred when (and where) you collect a coin has been overcome, anda makor bug involving the whole starfield affair will come back no more!
But the main interest goes to the editor: Mike’s projects about it are simply inflating more. The first idea was to have a good PC editor in order to manage all-in-one +4 sprites, level graphics and mapping. But with the dread advent of a C64 version, so many useful option has enriched the whole project. Currently, having into the editor all the tools for Spectrum too, is a temptation that a coder can’t despise!
So, you could say, Luca’s sleeping while the whole XeO3 armada slowly moves to the final achievement. 
But noooo, of course, on the countrary: I’m so close to finish the sprites for 1st level, 22 sprites left and a whole big boss to invent from zero.
But let me show my waste of the last days’sprites.
I managed to shrink and compress walkers in the little 8×16 area we have, and the result doesn’t look so bad! 
We will swap different walkers level per level, choosing which when and where. Hope I will be able to move them correctly, with no mismatch between animation and scrolling…
Another sprite I needed is the pod, a non-directional baddie of general use, it could be either grouped in menacious attack waves and set it orbiting around the big boss. First, I tried a full moving version of this, with the core ball rotating too, afterward me and Mike thought that the simpler the better. Then, the result.
Ok, what is the best object to make a sprite collide? Yes, caught it: another sprite!
The middle boss has a huge bazooka, and this last toy looks like it can shoot big bullets. And that bullet will be a sprite. I used 7 frames to animate it, 4 frames for the flying trajectory and 3 frames in the shooting itself. A well spend single hour of working, have to say… The animated gif below is a guess, not to take so seriously, but it can let you imagine how it really plays. Hey, something you must see in the game only, right? 😉
A little but neat retouch in the panel. Why don’t use much color when you can? Let’s enrich the little logo with some more colours, look. Little touches, preparing mind and body to challenge against the big boss’drawing. I’ll do it, don’t worry, I’ll do it!
XeO3 - Work In Progress 
Daily dose of criticism 😉
As always these are just things that come to my mind when watching/reading and I’m sure you can take it (not too seriously in case it’s not positive 😉 ).
The lower type of walker looks great! The blinking head perfectly balances the animation between lower and upper half of the sprite.
That’s what I miss in the upper type (up side down one) a bit. Most of the animation takes place in the legs. One might argue “Yeah, because it’s a WALKER” but maybe you can try something in the “gun” part. Maybe some kind of “pumping”, like a pump gun… hard to explain… hope you get my point. Just something small, nothing too complicated or distracting.
About the pod… I like the “flashy” effect 🙂 But shouldn’t the ring cast a shadow on the core ball? I agree with both of you that it should be kept simple and maybe there’s not enough space on the core ball to draw a convincing shadow… have you tried that?
The added colors in the logo are good. Even though I’m in favor of proper sprites (over colors and accompanying problems), I think they should be added everywhere possible. These kind of details are probably not noticed directly but subconsciously they are registered and add to the great looks.
Looking forward to meet the boss 😉
Ciao,
Chicken
We love criticism, it enriches us more and more 🙂
Both improvement has been just tried in the drawing phase.
The gunwalker, when”pumping”, appears like a “Think on a Spring” ironic stuff, then I prefered to draw a metallic screw in it instead.
The core ball in the pod had been tried both rotating and shadow-driven: we really preferred the simple one. But in the second case, I’m just working on it to improve the effect, you caught me 😉
I’m looking forward to see the boss too, coz I had to slow down my job a bit in order to let Mike see how to manage bullets and shots with it.