Mice, Mole Orbs, Blue Slimes and Cats
Hello! I've been super busy these last couple of weeks, animating a bunch of enemies for my new game. So if you like seeing a bunch of silly pixel art creatures, you might enjoy today's newsletter!
I squished them all into one video, so I'll post the video first and talk about them afterwards:
Mice
The mice are the main new addition to the game. Up until now, every melee enemy was either really easy, like the slime, or really frustrating and tedious to fight against, like enemies who can block attacks or who only have brief vulnerable windows between their attacks.
When I was working on Chessplosion's Gauntlet mode, I realized that what this game really needed was a melee enemy who could chase you down and damage you on contact, like the kings in Chessplosion. So I tried it out and it was instantly fun! To make the new enemies possible to fight against in a game with bump combat, I made them turn vulnerable for a few seconds every so often.
They're fun to fight against, but more importantly they make every other enemy in the game more fun to fight against too. Enemies like the fire-breathing pigs are much more of a threat when an invincible mouse is herding you towards them.
The red mice are another fun addition! They don't chase you as quickly as the regular mice but they control even more space, and they can quickly surround you and checkmate you if you don't keep them under control. I've been wanting to make some enemies who force you to proactively deal with them before they get out of control, and mice fill this role perfectly.
Blue Slimes
Blue slimes are a result of me playing way too much Fight'N Rage recently. That game has very short and wide stages like most beat-em-ups. To make its enemies a threat in these big wide stages, it gives them ways to quickly line themselves up with you horizontally and hit you with a long-range attack, like a whip or a diving kick. I thought I'd try making an ultra-strong version of the slimes that worked that way too, to see how it felt.
They ended up being way more fun than I expected! They're a lot harder to deal with than most other enemies, so maybe I'll introduce them later in the game.
Mole Orbs
The moles in my game used to throw rocks, but I wanted them to throw a slow-moving projectile that can go through walls and it just looked weird to make a rock work that way. So now they throw glowing orbs of energy! It looks silly but I like it.
Cat!!
This new enemy isn't quite done yet, but they're my favorite looking one of the bunch! Here's a quick preview of them, which I recorded earlier today when I was messing around on my PC instead of working:
I've spent way too long drawing lots of enemies for this game, and it's time for me to move on. There's one more enemy that I really want to draw after I finish the cat, and then I'll finally start turning this into a real game.
Hopefully next time I'll be able to show something more than just a single demo room with some enemies in it. We'll see. In the meantime, I hope you have a great couple of weeks!