Game Design, Movement patterns
|
So this is my first post in this series of posts documenting our work and progress on our space-shooter. I work in group 18, and we are making a game called Potato Pirates. Potato Pirates is a 2-dimensional space shooter side-scroller in which you control an airplane and meet enemy airplanes. I worked on the movement patterns for the enemies that the player faces. In the game we have a stealth feature for the player, meaning that the player can play through the missions without actually getting involved in combat by skillfully maneuvering their airplane, but if the player gets detected the enemies will start shooting. In order for this feature to be interesting and challenging in both stealth- and combat mode, our enemies will have two different states, each corresponding to a specific movement pattern. Our different types of enemies are: Scout, a scouting plane without offensive capabilities. Once the player is detected, no more Scouts will spawn, so the Scout only has the patrolling movement pattern. The Scout can detect the player at a good distance so it has a linear and predictable movement pattern. The angle of the path the Scout travels is randomized, illustrated in the mock-up below by the dotted line. Mock-up of Scout movement:
Ace, a more agile plane than Scout. Ace has offensive capabilities, and therefore has both a patrolling movement pattern and a combat movement pattern. The patrolling pattern of the Ace is a slow sinusoidal sweep across the screen, while the combat movement pattern is a much quicker sinusoidal pattern. Mock-up of Ace patrolling pattern:
Mock-up of Ace combat pattern:
Heavy gunner, the Heavy gunner is a slower more tank-like plane that has greater offensive capabilities than the Ace so it has a more predictable movement pattern. The Heavy gunners patrolling pattern is the same as the Scouts movement pattern, and its combat pattern is the same as the patrolling pattern of the Ace. Missile plane, the Missile plane is a slow moving plane that shoots homing projectiles towards the player. In patrolling mode it has the same movement pattern as the Scout, but in combat mode it will “home” towards the player. Blimp, the Blimp is very slow and has the most health of all the enemies. The Blimp also fires in all directions at the same time, making it incredibly dangerous. Since the Blimp is such a massive construct it has a linear patrolling patter, same as Scout, and a very slight homing movement towards the player in combat. So, that’s it for the movement patterns of the enemies so far.  |
