Hello!
In this post we’re gonna talk about the stop time mechanic, aka “zawarudog”
This mechanic is heavily tied to absorb. The idea is when the player holds down the absorb button the stage will freeze for some time depending on the power stored in the “time stop bar”. While the stage is stopped the ship remains vulnerable and bullets shot by the player will not move until this ability ends.
The “time stop bar” is filled when the ship absorb bullets, the fully charged bar grants 3 seconds of time stop and requires at least 1 second stored in order to activate the ability.
Some key points about this mechanic while Stop Time is active:
- Enemies and bullets can’t move.
- Player can’t absorb bullets.
- Camera scroll stops.
- Player can shoot, but his bullets stays frozen on first frame.
- Player can use the force-like power up “Animal Spirit” to damage enemies.
- Player bullets can’t hit enemies.
- All hazards can hit the player, when the player dies Time Stop ends.
- If an animation like the WARNING sign is playing, it will be paused too.
- The game can be paused and resumed.
- Music is paused.
- Some power ups like “overdrive” and the “jackpot” score system, which are time-based, will have their duration extended by the frozen time, the exploit of these mechanics is key for score-based runs.
This ability hasn’t changed too much since the first prototype, the most notorious change is the nerf to the maximum time from 5 seconds to 3.
We hope you understood the explanation of these mechanics, don’t forget you can try them here: