Just uploaded the next version of Guardian for playtesting (you’ll need to be an XNA Creators Club member and signed in to follow the link successfully). There were lots of changes this time around. Over 250 items checked off of the todo list, many of them polish type things, but also some very major changes and additions, including these:

• Supports multiple control configurations. The “standard” set is default and uses suggestions received from the last playtest
• 2-4 player cooperative play
• Comprehensive tutorial
• Cleaned up the help “wall of text” somewhat
• Added “demo mode” to allow watching how the game is played – this will also function as “attract mode” in a later version
• Added 4 difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, Hard, Legendary
• High scores for each difficulty level
• Cooperative high scores for each difficulty level
• Global (peer-to-peer) high scores for each difficulty level
• The background nebula is now animated in the menus
• Background nebula regenerated for each new wave
• Increased sprite sizes
• Show ammo level on selected weapon, eliminated inventory display
• Automatically switch back to laser canon if out of ammo

I have a couple more things to finish up and then I’ll probably release another version before the 7 day playtest is up. If that all goes well I’ll be submitting it for review in a couple of weeks!