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This entry will primarily focus on the planning process and the beginnings of developing the enemies and obstacles for my game. The player requires challenges when completing objectives in order to make them fulfilling. Thus, I need to dedicate a lot of time and effort in creating and polishing their mechanics. Initially, I had several ideas on what kind of enemies would suit the project. However, it was difficult visualising how they would work. So, I thought to myself, 'Hey, it'd help a lot if I just drew them out!'. And thus, I got some pen and paper and set to work.
As you can see from the figure above, I drew up what the obstacles and enemies would look like, as well as jotted down notes and the characteristics of their unique mechanics.
Their main mechanics was that they would spawn into the world completely hidden by the dark environment. They would only be activated, or seen, if the player uses their echo ability. And so, all of them will have a black and white colour scheme.
About the laser obstacle, I recently had a thought about reworking it entirely. Due to its simplistic design, there would be a high chance the player may mistake it for a wall instead of a dangerous threat. Thus, I decided to substitute the design with spikes instead. The mechanic will remain the same, with the player dying on contact, unless they find a way to deactivate it.
I felt that I should start on the most difficult enemy to implement: the enemy that shoots bouncing projectiles. How I planned for it to work was that it would start invisible to the player until it gets "woken up" by an echo or bullet. It will start aiming at the player and shooting circular projectiles at regular intervals, while remaining static. The enemy bullets will bounce off the walls for a certain amount of time, before destroying themselves. The bullet will also have a similar trait of invisibility, and can only be revealed by the player's echo ability. I thought this would be an interesting concept.
However, I did consider whether invisible bullets will be fair to the player at all. Plus, the echo ability isn't very fast to deploy, so it would be very frustrating if the player just died from nothing. I was wondering to myself for some time, whether the bullets should be visible or not. Perhaps the game should be divided by difficulty? But then I came to a compromise. The bullets will be visible for some time once it is spawned by the enemy, but will fade away over time. It will only become visible once it comes into contact with another obstacle or a wall. That way, the player has an idea of the bullet's trajectory. Wow, I am such a genius!
Jokes aside, I made a few tweaks here and there as well. Instead of fading the echo's colour to black, I changed the alpha value instead, since it made more sense visually. I also added a ring around the beacon when it is activated, so the player has an idea of its area of effect. I also implemented a player death mechanic too, since I felt that it was essential.
Guess what? This week is a special week. There are 2 demo gifs! :0
The first one demonstrates the visual tweak to the beacon. The second one features the projectile shooting enemy.
That's about it for now, but expect more updates on the enemies and obstacles I will be implementing in the next few weeks. Thanks for reading, and see you in the next one!