Nether bird
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Today I would like to talk about the design aspect of our first enemy in the game we are working on. My group is working on Aetherial, which the player takes the role of a sky ship and confronts several different enemies in an aetheric environment. The first enemy a player confronts in our game is a bird (it doesn’t have a name yet), which is supposed to be the weakest enemy that flies around in covey. It can perform ranged electric attacks or encircles the ship with its pack and performs close range attacks. All the enemies in game have the same color scheme (purple tones), because i wanted all to look like they come from another dimension, more specifically as they belong to nether. Purple color, dark environment, electric beams and crystals are the things that pop into my mind automatically when nether is mentioned. I used purple tones and a same colored shifting pattern during the design. Shifting pattern saves the bird from being dull, and somehow gives a feather-like feeling. Both shifting pattern and edgy design of tail and wings show the player that it is an electric bird. The beak has a yellow tone, giving a contrast color to purple. The turquoise eye color doesn’t have a specific meaning, it is just to make them shine, and look otherworldly
Overall I believe it was a good exercise to design such enemy. It made a nice example to follow, both by color scheme and pattern, when creating other enemies.  |
While the bird is small and is supposed to be the weakest enemy, its shape and shifting patterns indicate that it is still no ordinary bird, and is capable of dealing damage. It’s movement will be as gliding in the air with its covey. We all agreed on that regular side shown wing flapping bird movement might be distracting when several enemies are in the frame (imagine a pack of birds flapping wings at the same time, it might drag your attention from the stronger enemies). This type of gliding movement also makes it more interesting, and gives easier feeling to the eyes.