Enemies’ Effect
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The previous weeks’ posts were about the teleport mechanic in “Burn Witch, Burn!”. This week I’d like to go through the dynamics associated with it. The game’s world space is quite limited for a bullet hell. Combined with the floaty controls, from hovering over the ground on a broom, the player is very susceptible to taking damage. The teleport provides the player with a means to escape otherwise difficult predicaments. In the early stages of prototyping, the enemies were only programmed to chase the player. No matter what their orientation, they would turn towards the player and home in on them. It felt unnatural to say the least. We added an effect where enemies would become confused if the player disappeared from their field of view. In the confused state, they would make small rotations in both directions before making a full turn towards the player, unless the player reappears in the field of view sooner.  The intention behind the effect was not purely visual. Another enemy, the knight, would not be able to be hit from the front, because of their shield blocking the player’s shots, making it necessary to teleport behind them and hitting them from behind whilst they’re confused. During playtesting, we noticed that players weren’t noticing the effect and thus couldn’t take advantage of the intended tactics provided by the teleport. We later added a question mark bubble animation over confused enemies’ heads to emphasize the effect. It then became obvious and intuitive for players to teleport behind enemies.   |