Zaarock from the irc channel agreed to partner up for the co-op and we got to it. As we’re both located in Finland there’s very minimal lag, so that’s the technical side taken care of.

It’s almost like a whole different game with two players. At first we both basically played it like a single player game, which stops being a good idea at the midpoint of Stage 1. So, heavily revised tactics need to be made. Instead of trying to divide the power-ups evenly from the start, one player now collects most of the power-ups in stage 1, with the other getting the Force just before the boss. Works much better. The first two stages are pretty straightforward and simple  so there’s not much visible teamwork (until the second boss, anyway) but from stage 3 onwards there’s almost nothing else.

Dimensions has options for playing with player collision on or off, and being gluttons for punishment, we’re having it on. This means that the ships can’t overlap but they push each other around instead. Often into inconveniently placed wall or bullet. This is responsible for maybe third of our deaths. Playing the co-op game with player collision on means you not only have to look out for your own ship, but also be aware where the other ship is and is there anything fatal near it. Should make for fun times when we really get into stage 6 with its moving boxes and tight routes to follow.

We have made it to stage 6 on several occasions, but never at full strength. Most of our deaths happen in stage 4, and reaching stage 5 in an underpowered ship makes the stage so much harder. If we could both get there fully powered, it’d probably be the easiest stage of all.

I uploaded a video of one our more successful attempts (until the first death, anyway) to Youtube. I’m not going to post videos constantly about this, this was more a proof-of-concept thing to show people what co-op play looks like. Or looked like, we’ve already changed some of the tactics used in that video.