It’s been a while since we posted any information about 2.1’s progress on the front page, so here’s some random tidbits from the development team:

	The shield graphics are finally getting a revamp in 2.1, with a unique image for each shield. This means it’ll be possible to figure out what shield you have in a colormap, as well as in the dark. They also just look awesome, as this screenshot of the Armageddon Shield demonstrates.
	Emblems are also getting a dramatic revamp, as this heavily beta screenshot sorta demonstrates. While we won’t provide accurate details of what the new system entails, the player will no longer have to worry about coming across an emblem that they cannot collect. You can now taste the emblem rainbow.
	Record Attack now allows you to race against ghosts of your previous replays. The game automatically saves a replay of your fastest time, highest score, and most rings, as well as your most recent attempt at the stage. While playing, it shows all of these replays at once as ghosts, allowing you to directly race your best attempts. You can also race against a guest replay to try your luck against a friend’s best time.
	SRB2 now supports LUA scripting. LUA is a scripting language which allows you to modify SRB2 with far more flexibility than SOCs, allowing you to change tons of stuff that previously required a custom EXE. As an example, here is a screenshot of creator.wad, a test WAD for the feature. Creator.wad is a competitive map played in the Coop gametype where a random player is selected to pilot the Eggmobile to design his own GFZ3 arena layout, and then fight the rest of the players in it. The player piloting the Eggmobile has access to all of its normal attacks and movement abilities, and takes eight hits just like the real thing.

As with all of the previous updates, the exact details may change in the future, and in fact in a few of these cases these screenshots are already outdated. These features are all functional in the current beta, although they aren’t all fully complete.