New Mage Enemy - Design and other ramblings

Fire Mage Design

The new Fire Mage enemy is the first of three planned 'main' enemies.

The main idea behind the Fire Mage is to encourage smarter movement and Action Point usage from the player.

Its attack is a timed fireball that deals massive damage in a medium-sized area. The fireball can deal damage to enemies as well, making it a useful tool for clearing large groups of mobs without having to spend Action Points. The mage does not need line of sight to set off the fireball, meaning that the player can't hide behind walls to safely engage fodder. This makes the Fire Mage a priority target for the player, as otherwise the player would have to worry about getting cornered without Action Points.

Telegraphing Attacks

Given how lethal the fireball attack is, I wanted to make sure that the player has ample time to avoid the attack, but at the same time have it be imminently threatening to the point that the player is forced to prioritize their actions. My first idea was to have a noticeable attack sprite that would tick the player off, and have a simple 'danger zone' circle pop up where the fireball is about to explode. However, this obfuscated a crucial detail: when is the fireball ACTUALLY going to explode? The sprite animation of the mage did not telegraph the damage point clearly enough - and not only that, but when multiple mages are on the screen, the player has to divide their attention between all of them to spot a 0.5 second long animation. I realised this was actually unfeasible, so I took to telegraphing using more prominent means. Most of the player's attention is going to be centered around the character itself, so to put the timer of the fireball explosion on the danger zone circles themselves which would show up next to the player made sense.

Scrapped Attacks

Originally I planned for the Fire Mage to have three attacks: A fireball, a firebeam, and a personal fire blast.

The fireball is as above. The firebeam is a deadly laser-like attack that deals damage to all in its path, but requires line of sight. The mage would use this when the player is in sight, and the fireball when out of sight. The personal fire blast would have been a deterrent to prevent the player from rushing in and killing the mage. When the player is within a set distance, the mage would set off a fireball at its location that doesn't deal damage to itself.

The main reasons these extra two attacks were scrapped was simplicity. I want to keep enemies simple and focused on a single thing. I might consider adding these attacks in the future, perhaps to higher level mages which are encountered after the player has mastered the basics.

Next Up

So as I mentioned there are two more main enemies that I'm planning on adding:

• The Footman

• The Summoner

The footman is armed with a sword and shield. He's tanky and he packs a punch. He deflects frontal attacks with his shield. The player has to circle behind him and attack before he turns around to block.

The summoner is a support enemy that summons in fodder by portal. It pushes the player back when they get too close. 

Game Balance

Throughout development I've been consciously planting knobs that I can configure to tweak the game's difficulty. At least until all the game's elements are developed and put together, I have to keep everything configurable. Even then, exploits might pop up and require reactive changes.

What I've felt has the biggest impact so far are health drops and action point recharge drops.

Health drops make the game more forgiving by encouraging the player to be more aggressive.

Action point recharge drops allow the player to spam expensive abilities more often, resulting in a snowball effect where the player gets to keep killing for action points.

I am still playing around with these drops and their availability, i.e. some enemies drop health, others drop action points, some drop both, some drop neither, etc...

Experiments

I've been dabbling with sound effects and trying to come up with satisfying sounds for the player's slash attack. I am very much inspired by DOOM's (2016/Eternal) punchy sounds and heavy music. Since the start of this project I've planned to hire someone else to do the sounds (and definitely the music), but I think it would be a nice learning experience to attempt some of it myself.