Unfriendly Faces (3/28)

Hey guys! The time has come for another game dev update, this time on those enemies I mentioned. As it turns out, adding enemies from scratch in your game while also trying to plan ahead to include them in your level editor is hard, actually. I ended up spending more time than expected just planning out how I wanted to go about things and trying to future-proof ideas, but that doesn't mean I don't have something to show for it

Here's a look at the very first enemy in action, Bashnimb the Nimbguard! (Pump is the one that came up with his name, lol). He'll patrol a set area of the level, floating back and forth until spotting an intruder. Once he sees Maya, he'll begin chasing her down, swinging his baton once he gets close enough to ward her away. All of this is currently functional in the game already, though like his sprites it's still a work in progress and I'll improve it as I go.

What's still left to be finished is Maya's options for fighting back: Maya's main way of fighting will be stomping on his head. Doing so will cause his cloud body to disperse, leaving behind an empty armored suit. Maya can then pick up and throw that suit that was left behind, and potentially use it as a weapon against other guards. If left alone though, the defeated guard will eventually reform, retrieving their suit and going back to their patrol route. As you can probably imagine, getting this to work is gonna be an entire task on it's own, so it's something I'll be working on in the coming weeks.

Additionally, now that there are multiple sources of damage in the game, I'll be looking into potentially adding a proper health system for Maya, which also means functionality for her to die and respawn. Though ngl, it does feel pretty weird thinking about that. If you guys reading have any thoughts on that, I'd love to hear from you, I might end up trying multiple ideas when it comes to health in this game.

Also, this will be my first scheduled post, set to go public at 12 PM EST on Patreon (and then I'll post on bluesky sometime later). I'll try and make this a habit every other week going forward, so look forward to that! I don't have anything else to say for this update, but I do have one more thing to show: a sneak peak at the next enemy I have planned. Until next time!