Unfortunately me and the guys weren't able to have a game development get-together this Saturday, regardless some new stuff was added:

• Stephen added Snoopy-esque flying goggles (only when operating a vehicle) as well as drawing an animated caged Kiwi (Bottom right of the image - the really subtle tears are a nice touch).
• Bitmap font functionality added.
• Triple parallax (Could be quad layer if you consider the foreground as part of it) replacing the single layed parrallax. I'm hoping to get a pseudo-3D effect similar to that of the early Sonic games.
• Basic NZ Map screens added
• Unlike the original game, the vehicles now have momentum. Dodgem style collisions with enemy vehicles should be fun
• Configuration of enemies and levels has been seperated out from the code base into a config file.

For the past week I've been focusing almost exclusively on the engine rather then any new content - my goal is to get the game engine fundamentally complete by the end of Labour weekend. It might be difficult squeezing development time in between Auckland Congress Hall (Salvation Army) 125th anniversary celebrations and Armageddon, but I will make sure I set aside some time each and every day to focus on making the game. Less a month and a half of the competition to go and still mountains of work to be done. It's scary, but I'm confident we'll pull it off somehow.