Today I will blog a bit about what we are calling The Pufferfish
How did we design a relatively easy enemy?
This is The Pufferfish, it is supposed to be one of the easiest enemies in the game.
We wanted to create an original enemy as opposed to what was written in the original concept document.
We chose to do this because we felt that the original design lacked a sense of mechanics, or rather too complicated mechanics. But also we felt that the original didn’t match the aesthetic of the game.
These were the first concepts done by the artists:
This is originally called The Skyslug.
So why did we choose to scrap the idea of this and improve on a better version?
First of all The Skyslug did not feel as though it would fly first of all, which all of the enemies are supposed to do.
Second of all it felt really clunky to implement an enemy which would fly in a formation and attack the player character by flying around it.
The artists felt that the animation of that would be far too technical for their level at the moment in our production.
So where did we go from there?
So what I had to do in order for us to realize the enemy from there was to write some general User-Stories.
I discussed with the graphical artists about different sea animals that convey a more aerodynamic feeling. The result of that was several enemy suggestions.
These are the User-Stories Provided for the Sky Pufferfish:
As a Sky Pufferfish
I will move slowly towards the player.
Because I want to come close enough to explode and damage the player.
As a Sky Pufferfish
I will expand close to the player
Because it scares the player from moving towards me
As a Sky Pufferfish
I will do high damage
Because I am fragile but dangerous up close
The graphic artists then came up with this idea:
This would then perfectly convey a kind of bomb approaching the player character.
And our programmer was able to understand exactly how it would behave once it reaches the player as well.
And that is how we created a relatively easy enemy.
About Axel Halén
2017 Game Design
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