Updated on December 17, 2017
Creating Swashbuckling Enemies
Ahoy! Today I’ll be talking about what I’m doing with the enemies of Defend Yer Booty! and trying to build an enemy vs. tower system that reduces restriction and encourages new strategies with player choice.
Towers VS. The Horde
One of my main goals of Defend Yer Booty! is to create a Tower-Defense experience with a variety of enemies. Along with this, allow the player not to be bogged down by having to choose towers/tools that can only destroy specific enemies, e.g. Air based enemies can only be taken down by anti-air based towers. So the towers/contraptions do their job, but depending on the enemy and placement would not work as efficient as others. This allows the player to strategize and to never be truly penalized by their choice.
Enemy Roles and The Counter Attack
To encourage the use of different techniques against enemies I’ve created different enemy roles. Like a traditional Tower Defense, enemies have an end goal to get to, but because enemies can effect towers and the player and vice-versa, this means that the gameplay needed to support counterattack situations. There’s three basic types of enemy roles the player will constantly encounter. The Target Seeker, whose goal is to go straight for the main target, will attack the player, towers or contraptions if they need to but will always generally not derail from their goal. Then there’s the Defense Breaker, who will try to take out as much as the player’s defense on the way. The last basic type is the Stalker, who will hunt down the player. These roles allow for small varying occurrences where the player is adapting and adjusting their defense to counter and survive.
Other Ways To Take Down The Horde
I’ve also added the ability for additional damage bonuses through using certain towers and contraptions. Enemies have a chance to be set on fire, poisoned or stunned, which makes for a satisfying opportunity. Enemies will also have slight strengths and weaknesses which adds another layer of awesome and hopefully encourages the player to be creative with their arsenal.
Versatility and Opportunity
Creating non specific counter strategies will hopefully allow players to make choices that aren’t binding and fatally consequential and more importantly interchangeable. Giving players more freedom with building their defense against the enemy also allows me to create a less rigid and predictable experience with spawning enemies and enemy types. On the other side of that, I feel like I’ve also created enemies with more depth as a result. I can’t wait to see how players build their defense. 🙂
-Josh
