Deep dive #2 - The anvil
Hello again! For the second post in the deep dives series I want to talk about the enemies, the anvil that you will test your metal against.
I previously mentioned enemies being designed for certain roles, like different chess pieces but in a FPS format. When designing enemies there are 2 vital areas I need to figure out and that is how do they fit into the “play space” and where in “screen space” do I want them.
Let's start with “play space”, the first question might be what even is it? Well.. let me show you!
With a top down overview you can see where in “play space” the enemies aspire to be positioned along with some of their characteristic elements. This “play space” chart is quite a useful tool to not only identify which “play space” areas could use more enemy types but also how to combine the different enemies to make compelling and varied arena fights.
“Screen space” is.. well.. what it sounds like, the preferred positioning on the screen from the player perspective.
Identifying an enemy's “play space”, “screen space” and some of its characteristic elements aids quite a bit when conceptualizing it and getting its basic shape blocked out and ready for prototyping.
Having an arena fight with an overcrowded “play space” or “screen space” makes it very messy and not as fun. Thanks to this process, assuming we got our enemies working like we want of course, we now have enemies that utilize varied “play spaces” and “screen spaces” in a fight.
By having AIs in different threat tiers gives us a natural target priority and thanks to some AIs abilities we can influence the target priority mid fight forcing you to reevaluate your focus, actions or weapon choice.
It has been essential to get enemies with their actions to nudge the player into the fun zone of RETOOLED. I’m quite excited to have you all wreck some of my AIs, or perhaps even have them wreck you ;)
And that is it for this deep dive, there are more deep dives to come!
And remember, join the Discord to discuss the game and find out about the latest updates:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1997590/RETOOLED/
I previously mentioned enemies being designed for certain roles, like different chess pieces but in a FPS format. When designing enemies there are 2 vital areas I need to figure out and that is how do they fit into the “play space” and where in “screen space” do I want them.
Let's start with “play space”, the first question might be what even is it? Well.. let me show you!
With a top down overview you can see where in “play space” the enemies aspire to be positioned along with some of their characteristic elements. This “play space” chart is quite a useful tool to not only identify which “play space” areas could use more enemy types but also how to combine the different enemies to make compelling and varied arena fights.
“Screen space” is.. well.. what it sounds like, the preferred positioning on the screen from the player perspective.
Identifying an enemy's “play space”, “screen space” and some of its characteristic elements aids quite a bit when conceptualizing it and getting its basic shape blocked out and ready for prototyping.
Having an arena fight with an overcrowded “play space” or “screen space” makes it very messy and not as fun. Thanks to this process, assuming we got our enemies working like we want of course, we now have enemies that utilize varied “play spaces” and “screen spaces” in a fight.
By having AIs in different threat tiers gives us a natural target priority and thanks to some AIs abilities we can influence the target priority mid fight forcing you to reevaluate your focus, actions or weapon choice.
It has been essential to get enemies with their actions to nudge the player into the fun zone of RETOOLED. I’m quite excited to have you all wreck some of my AIs, or perhaps even have them wreck you ;)
And that is it for this deep dive, there are more deep dives to come!
And remember, join the Discord to discuss the game and find out about the latest updates:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1997590/RETOOLED/
