Hi again! This time around, I’ll be showing some of the monsters and bad guys in the game (What game? You should check out the rest of my devblog if you haven’t!). I’ve been focusing on developing enemies lately. The base code has been done for a while, it’s just a matter of styling different foes and giving them different behaviours and stuff.
The bad guys in the Fire Region are among the least challenging in the game. Being fire-oriented, many of them take direct damage from Arc’s ice magick, while others are just kind of weak. They’re still dangerous, though! Here are a few of them…
Kuuwaki Fire
These hot little flames may think they’re cool, but they’re the most basic monsters Arc will encounter. They patrol the platforms they’re stationed on. A single ice shot will destroy them. If an ice cube is knocked into a Kuuwaki Fire, its body will extinguish to melt the cube. This will become a recurring theme throughout the Fire Region, as Arc must be wary of flames if she is to dispatch frozen foes. Fortunately, the enemies in the Fire Region are not too difficult to overcome, so it’s more of a nuisance than anything else.
Fennel
These magicked roots were traditionally used to store fire, but now they have been weaponized by the enemy. They wander about, shooting little fireballs with wanton abandon. Their flames can release other frozen enemies if Arc isn’t careful. They also hurt, because they’re fireballs!
Achiwing
It looks like a normal bat, but then SWOOP – BOOM! A winged fireball flies headlong into Arc! Fortunately, they’re very easy to take down with ice magick, so long as the sorceress has decent enough aim. Also, being bats, they might be susceptible to thunder as well… It’s not the recommended approach, since it favours the close-range weapon over the long-range one, but it does demonstrate the flexibility of attacking in the game. Some enemies will have multiple weaknesses, and there are almost always multiple ways to take care of enemies.
Wayward Fighter
These angsty teens have been led astray by the dastardly Eros Traitos. Now they’re setting fire to the countryside and bullying everybody! If they find Arc, they’ll attack by jumping forth and swinging their great swords. If Arc dodges the wrong way, she can still try to block them with her Thunder Wand. Since the wand isn’t strong enough to harm most enemies, it’s more like a poweful multipurpose tool than a straightforward weapon.
There are other classes of Waywards, but I’d like to leave them a mystery for now… There are also other, very different enemy types in the Fire Region, but I don’t want to give everything away just yet! Consider this another little teaser, as well as a little proof that I really am working on this thing…
It isn’t necessary to defeat most enemies, but they do drop rewards (and also, I suppose it would make the game much harder to be pacifistic). Each enemy type will release a different range of ice and thunder XP Orbs. For example, a Kuuwaki Fire only drops thunder XP, while a Wayward Fighter drops an even range of both ice and thunder XP. If Arc is missing health, enemies have a chance of dropping Hearts instead of XP Orbs. The chance to drop Hearts also varies by the enemy type, as well as the type of Hearts they can drop (+1 or +3 heart bonuses). It goes without saying that felling enemies yields score bonuses too.
One neat thing about the way enemies spawn in the game is that, while the levels are procedurally generated, they’re still designed to be balanced. Enemies are fairly distributed across each entire level, so there won’t be a time when the player encounters most of the enemies in a single part of the screen (unless said player intentionally tries to corral them together, I suppose). The enemy types also vary depending on which stage of which region is currently being played. For instance, Fennels don’t appear after level 2, and Achiwings don’t appear until level 4. There also won’t be situations in which every single enemy of a level is a Kuuwaki Fire. So, for anyone who cringes at the word “procedural”, don’t be afraid – I have a strong desire to make this game as balanced as possible. It’s not a roguelike, after all!
That’s it for this entry. Next time, I’ll talk about… well, I haven’t decided yet, but I’ll be prepared with bunches of GIF’s again! Until then, if you have any questions or comments, please post them in the comments section below (it’s quick and easy to sign up!), or get in touch via social media:
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Thanks for reading!
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