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[eyeliner]

Fireflies as a non aggressive enemy. Kill them, and light fades or even goes out completely.

[SolarLune]

An enemy with lots of holes in, so its hard to shoot..

Yeah, like maybe some kind of dimension warper. He can open holes in space to send your arrows back at you.

[Destral]

An enemy with lots of holes in, so its hard to shoot..

Yeah, like maybe some kind of dimension warper. He can open holes in space to send your arrows back at you.

Now you(r enemies) are thinking with portals. In fact, you might include something like that in a puzzle somewhere (shoot into one portal, arrow comes out the other one in the same direction to hit a target you wouldn't be able to hit otherwise).

Something zombie/mudman-like that rises from the ground and/or sinks back into the ground to teleport around the player could be neat.

[sugarbeard]

Along the lines of the "arrows go through them" suggestions above, how about a Gelatinous Cube. No really, think about it.

[Ashking]

Along the lines of the "arrows go through them" suggestions above, how about a Gelatinous Cube. No really, think about it.

It absorbs normal arrows but is highly flammable, so once it absorbs a fire arrow then it burns up?

[st33d]

Along the lines of the "arrows go through them" suggestions above, how about a Gelatinous Cube. No really, think about it.

Traps are always much more useful to level design than enemies.

You'd be able to use a slow-jelly-block as a part of a timer switch puzzle.

[BlueSweatshirt]

An enemy that, when shot, will explode into fiery napalm fireworks of doom.
Pros: you can kill other enemies with it
Cons: it moves really fast and is small

Also: it explodes when it touches you.

[eigenbom]

Fireflies as a non aggressive enemy. Kill them, and light fades or even goes out completely.

+1

[ThePortalGuru]

Fireflies as a non aggressive enemy. Kill them, and light fades or even goes out completely.

+1

+2

[Ashking]

An enemy that, when shot, will explode into fiery napalm fireworks of doom.
Pros: you can kill other enemies with it
Cons: it moves really fast and is small

Also: it explodes when it touches you.

Have a narrow shaft full of these that you have to navigate safely. If you touch a single one, they all blow up in a chain reaction, burning you to death and destroying your goal. :3

Fireflies as a non aggressive enemy. Kill them, and light fades or even goes out completely.

Atmospheric creatures like this are a great idea, especially. This kind of world needs to have that extra spice to make it feel alive- and when there are no creatures, it will feel even more lonely.

[Gabriel Verdon]

DAY 309 - February 21, 2012

• Add in a prototype bouncing enemy and mirror enemy.
• Worked on backpack items.
• Added backpack items to saving/loading.

Awesome ideas guys! I really like the bouncing and mirror enemies in particular (I added in prototype versions of both).

I'm also definitely gonna add in non-hostile critters, but I'm saving that for later.

[GCshepard]

Fireflies as a non aggressive enemy. Kill them, and light fades or even goes out completely.

Cannot explain how awesome that would be. (+3)

Idea. For a boss, you could make it a worm/dragon hybrid thing that weaves around in the thick trees overhead instead of the dirt. Something different, albeit the coding could be very... yeah.

[BlueSweatshirt]

a bunch of random ideas because I'm in that kind of mood:

castlevania-esque axe-throwing enemy. Defeat it by shooting the axe with an arrow to deflect it back.
armored enemy whose only weakness is an arrow to the foot.(knee  ) it will make him keel over in pain and then you will have the opportunity to attack.
slow ghost enemy which stalks you and holds a lantern. acts as the only light source(s) in the level, no ambient lighting. a constant looming threat, but defeat them and you compromise your vision.
skeleton which can have it's head shot off and still act.(contrary to "headshot kills" trope)
chandeliers which come crashing down if their connecting chain/rope is shot.
small huddle of bats which will separate and dodge if shot at by an arrow.(assuming they notice) must be caught off-guard.
enemy which flies overhead and drops veils poisonous mist. firing arrows at the mist will separate/dissipate it. fire arrows will.. hmmm wind arrows or somesuch to separate even more?
zipline arrows ?
heavy large enemy that when shot enough will fall over and crush other enemies under it.

[HyperDuckChris]

Although the arrow to the knee phrase has been done to death, I think Jakmans suggestion of having heavies with weakness at the knees for arrows is hilarious, and should happen. I also +4 the firefly idea.

I love the ghost idea as well (go Jakman, you are FULL of these this mornin!.. Ideas, that is.) In fact I'll wrap it up and say I like all of Jakmans ideas. I like Jakman.

[Gabriel Verdon]

DAY 310 - February 22, 2012

• Rounded off the bat enemies, including basic bat, tough bat, mother bat, and king bat. I'm really glad I've been doing so much animation on Lumberjack because it's made me a lot more comfortable with the idea of animation a crapload of enemies.

Regarding non-aggressive creatures, that's something I am definitely going to include no matter what. Things like the birds and cats in Fez, and the squirrels in Super Meat Boy. I already have small glowy fireflies that are just particles, but I'm going to have interactive ones too. But I'm saving that for a bit later because it's more of a polish element.

@GCShepard
Yeah, I actually tried out wormy/chainy enemies a while ago but never got very far with them. I think they have a lot of potential though so I'm going to tackle those next.

@Jakman4242
Wow, nice ideas!
- I really like the idea of deflecting things back - I had worked that into a boss design but again, never got too far with it. Gonna give it another go though.
- The idea of enemies with weakspots is really good, but I'm just kinda dreading having to deal with different collision boxes within the same enemy because of how Game Maker works. Also, the enemy would have to be really big since it wouldn't work on a human scaled enemy. So again, cool idea, but will require a lot of work.
- Got that already
- Yeah I have small versions of that right now.
- That's quite interesting actually. I don't think I will do it with bats though, but probably a ghost that goes transparent instead. But yeah, cool stuff. Gonna try to get to those soon.



The way I'm kind of thinking about enemy designs right now is I'm kind of grouping enemies into families. Each enemy family would hopefully interact well with itself to create difficult challenges, and it also has the benefit of suggesting things about the world and the lore, which I really like.

So, as an extension to the last question, do you guys have ideas for different enemy families? Here is what I have so far:

- Bats (basic, bigger bats spawn smaller ones)
- Birds (tend to have swooping behaviour, move quickly)
- Ghosts (not sure yet)
- Fairies/Sprites (different colours are weak to different arrow types)
- Humans (soldiers and archers and whatnot)
- Robots (start with a basic frame and have different weapons attached)

So I pretty much have the basic ones covered, but I'm having trouble thinking of really "out there" ones, like wormy/chain enemies whatnot. Anyway, I'd love to hear your guyses thoughts.