Entertainment Hero - Enemy Design

I've been told several times that my stages need more enemies to fight, and I agree, I just hadn't gotten to that stage of development yet. I knew what my enemies do and how they behaved and where they should go, I just hadn't created them yet. I'm working on that now, and I have a several different enemy types in the game.

I don't plan on reusing enemies between stages. If I do there will always be something different about them to set them apart from the ones you find elsewhere. Here are a few different enemies in the game so far:

Here are the simple enemies so far. The Gears are for Metal Land. Each variant does something different. The first type tries to run into you once it's seen you and is destructible. The yellow variant moves along a set path and is not destructible. The red one ignores the player, moving forward until it hits a wall and then goes the other way, and is destructible. The green one stays attached to a surface, spinning in place, and is not destructible.

Then we have Fireball and Electroball. These are similar enemies, with one in Air Land and the other in Metal Land. The difference between them is pretty minor at the moment, with Fireball shooting up into the air from offscreen and then traveling back down, while Electroball can stay on screen and travel more intricate paths. All of the enemies in the picture above are damaging to the touch.

Next up we have the more complicated enemies, with more than one GameObject making them up and more complex behaviors.

First up is Gear Cannon, which appears in Metal Land with the rest of the Gear enemies. It's stationary and has a set distance that it's allowed to "see", represented by a red laser. Once you enter visible range it fires slow moving lasers at you. It's not a difficult enemy on it's own, but add in a conveyor belt or an Electroball moving above you and the challenge ramps up considerably.

Then we have Fire Jet, an enemy that appears in Air Land. It appears on the ground and on ceilings and shoots fire at set intervals. Wait for your chance to run through! Another simple enemy in concept, but if you're on a moving platform that only stops when you jump, things get more challenging!

The third enemy, and the only one of the three visible in the trailer, is the Mounted Laser. This guy is ceiling mounted and activates a column of electricity at set intervals. He's destructible but there's not a spot in the game currently where player shots can reach him.

Then we have the most recent enemy, and the most complicated of the lot. This is HelMet. He's an enemy that Mega Man players may find a tad familiar. He fires at the player, then lowers a protective shield that makes him immune to your shots.

While drawing his sprite sheet I noticed that the ports on his sides looked a little like eyes. After a copy-paste and a recolor he had very goofy cartoon eyes. Two minutes later he had a blinking animation. Jeremy, who writes the music for the game and voices Master Villain on the show, says HelMet is too cute to shoot at. I might agree with him.

(Please forgive the choppy gif.)

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