Enemies / Interactions / Puzzles (Week 3)

Hades 2 dropped this week and i have really been trying to resist spending all my time playing it for 'research purposes'. I was successful this week but if progress halts you'll know why....

Enemies

My priority this week was a boss, i wanted to add both a final boss and some sort of mini boss.

Firstly i added one extra regular enemy because more variety is always good.

Leek

For the Leek i went simple. I felt a simple single shot, but accurate enemy was needed, without it, a lot of the randomised attacks are too easy to dodge, the player should never feel safe standing still and i feel this enemy accomplished that.

Corn (Mini-Boss)

I am not certain what a mini-boss even is. Calling this guy a mini-boss might be wrong, i just want a unique fight that occurs once a run. That's what this guy is anyway. He is kind of easy to beat right now, but that will be changed once i figure out a good spread for the projectiles.

It shoots popcorn up and it comes falling back down. There is two of them for now, but that might change.

Cauliflower (Main-Boss)

I am only okay with how this guy turned out. I feel something about this guy is out of place, i am not certain why that is, and no feedback i received really helped me to do so. Its just a feeling though so it will either go away and these attacks will be final, or i will figure out what the issue is and fix it. So.. for now, these are the attacks.

The boss fight is split into 3 phases.

Phase 1- 3000 - 2250 health

This phase introduces the first attack, a blast in all directions shooting out bouncing and burning Cauliflowers.

These projectiles will bounce around for 5 seconds before de-spawning, but you can also shoot them to get rid of them faster. I like the idea of being able to shoot projectiles as it gives the player the choice to play safe or risky. If they shoot the projectiles they will be safer now, but in the long run they will be spending more time in the boss fight giving more opportunities to be hit by a stray bullet. But if you don't shoot them and full focus on the boss you may get through the fight faster but you are gonna have to be great at dodging as you are always going to be in a high risk situation with a lot of bullets on screen/

Phase 2 - 2250 - 1500 health

This phase introduces the second attack, its also a blast in all directions, but these blasts are slow moving, these have to be shot or they will spawn smaller cauliflower that shoot their own burst attacks. If you do not shoot these projectiles you will get overwhelmed very fast. You can shoot them after they have spawned but they will take two bullets each instead of one, and they shoot a lot of projectiles constantly so its preferable to never let them spawn.

Phase 3 - 1500 - 0 health

Simply both attacks combined. Now you know how to deal with both attacks, so do it.

CHAOS

Despite feeling something is off about the boss i think the phases work well, and i have been able to beat the boss pretty consistently with a few upgrades so balance shouldn't take too much work when i get to that in a later week.

That is all for enemies this week!

Unrelated

Gates

I finally added 'gates'

These giant cabbages guard the bridges and are killed when their last ally dies.

Pretty simple feature but long overdue.

Upgrades (WIP)

The upgrade system is underway, i have created menus that you bring up by simply walking up to them, and put them away by simply walking away, the upgrades i have in these systems function perfectly, with their respective HUD elements also functioning.

The menu UIs are not done, i would like the cooking system to actually be a cooking system if i can find the time. And i think the well upgrades will be reworked into preset weapons instead of just upgradable stat numbers.

Cooking Menu - 

Healthy Salad 

Each upgrade gives one heart. With an upgrade limit of two. The HUD updates accordingly. 

(You don't have to spam it, the buttons do work, idk why i did that)

Blank Burrito

Each upgrade gives one activatable blank. An upgrade limit of 3. The HUD updates accordingly.

Speedy Stew

Each upgrade increase speed by 0.5. Upgrade limit of 6. Starting Speed is 3 so with max upgrades your speed is doubled.

Well menu -

Attack Speed

Projectile Piercing

Both of these upgrades work, but as stated before, all weapon stat changes will be incorporated into different 'weapons'. Different weapons that vary in all these stats would be the most interesting. Otherwise you would always just max all the upgrades without any nuance. Weapons will let me give compromises, such as faster fire rate but lower damage, bigger projectiles but slower projectiles, higher damage projectiles but you have to charge them up etc. This is also better for balance down the line.

Peer review this week provided no areas i need to improve or features that don't work, a single bug was pointed out in that the ability to purchase blanks was not resetting on restart, that bug has been fixed.

That is all for this week,

Thanks for reading!!

The enemy animation gifs come from here: https://elthen.itch.io/2d-pixel-art-vegetable-monsters-sprite-pack