Devlog 5 - Enemies!

Hello, my name is Caleb! I'll be breaking down the creation of the three enemies in Script Scrapper.

The creation of enemies was not something I did alone, but rather something me and my teammate Bryson did together. The initial conceptualization was done together, and, following it, I have handled the programming side while Bryson has handled the art. The idea for our enemies was born out of the core mechanic of the game: stealing the "scripts" of enemies to gain advantages in combat and solve puzzles. It's almost like a mixture of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" and Kirby, only taking the ability of an enemy dynamically changes said enemy. With this being the starting point for enemy-conceptualization, there were a few things that guided our thinking along the way: scope, dynamic behavior, and uniqueness.

The scope of how many enemies we would be making was very important, as each would need to be modeled, rigged, textured, animated, and programmed. So, we ended up spending a lot of time coming up with a bunch of different random enemy ideas to pick a few from. Part of this process was coming up with strengths and weaknesses for each enemy, with the goal being to have each enemy provide an advantage over another. Below are six unused ideas for enemies, including a golem that would split into smaller rock enemies when its script was stolen.

The decision to stick with three enemies was a hard one, but in the end it was the right choice. Each enemy already needed to change dynamically when it no longer had its "script," so we had our work cut out for us with three. Another key principle for the design was for the enemies to be unique in appearance and behavior. This is best seen in the three enemy designs we landed on: A spider-lightbulb hybrid that attacks with electricity, a crying skull that becomes violently joyful and takes flight when his tears are taken, and a flaming, overclocked tech-bull that becomes frigid when his cooldown overcompensates. I'll break down each of them below.

The Electric "Spite-Bulb" was designed to be a tactical hive-mind enemy that alerts other nearby Spite-Bulbs when aggravated. They go into a hibernation mode when they are unable to find the player, in which they rest and heal. Before entering hibernation mode, the Spite-Bulb will search a few locations near the spot they saw the player first, just to make sure the threat is gone. When pursuing the player, however, they attack the player ruthlessly with electric-based attacks or resort to melee attacks if the player is too close. When they are weakened from having their "electricity script" taken, they lose the ability to use electricity on command. Instead, they back away and run from the player, only attacking if cornered. They also randomly teleport with small bursts of electricity without any say in the matter, becoming much more random and unpredictable.

The "Sobby Skull" was initially a very silly idea for a water enemy, which we knew we wanted. A docile skull on the ground that is surrounded by an orb of water, made from its own tears. Upon stealing its "water script," the skull would no longer be sad. In fact, it would be happy. And violent. The skull would take flight, becoming an aggressive flying enemy, staying out of range and flying down to attack the player. To make things more dangerous, the flying head will enter a self-destruct mode when low on health, ditching any attempt to attack the player and instead flying as close as possible so as to explode near them. Creating a satisfying pathfinding system for the enemy has been difficult, but the idea is coming to life with every update, and will look even better with the finished model and animations.

Finally, "The Overclock" was the solution to a question Bryson asked when we were coming up with ideas: "Could we have a fire enemy that switches to ice when its script is stolen?" The Overclock is violent and reckless, charging at the player and leaving a trail of fire due to the stress put on its system. It's functioning far beyond its capacity, and gets so overheated that it is almost always on fire. After attacking the player, it frequently has to enter a cooldown mode where liquid-coolant cools it down to a safe temperature. This cycle of going from ultra-violent to ultra-vulnerable is broken when The Overclock's "fire script" is stolen. This leads to the coolant system overdoing it, cooling the enemy down so much that it becomes an ice enemy, now slowly moving and causing a slowness effect to anything nearby. At the moment, this enemy needs the most attention, as it exists in a much simpler form than I have planned.

Overall, each enemy accomplished the goals we sought out for them to all accomplish when creating them, each bringing a unique set of attacks and behavior while falling within the scope of the project. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed hearing about some of the ideation behind the enemies!