Monster idea brainstorm record

Jetrel · 2013-04-30 08:02:12 UTC

DDR: Yeah. [11:50pm] marcavis: enemy with a zelda hookshot? [11:50pm] DDR: a la "headcrab"? [11:50pm] irker600 (~irker@ai0867.net) left the chat room. (Quit: transmission timeout) [11:51pm] marcavis: dunno [11:52pm] DDR: Idea #4: An enemy you can't outrun. [11:52pm] marcavis: scary [11:52pm] vultraz: enemy that is always behind you [11:52pm] vultraz: forcing you to attakc with your homing attack [11:53pm] vultraz: AND you can't outrun him [11:53pm] DDR: Idea #3: A pack hunter. One jumps over you, the other one or two attack you when you turn to face the first. [11:53pm] vultraz: so you have to keep running and dodging and killing other enemies to get mana to power your homing attack [11:53pm] Jetrel: Actually idea #4 is a pretty good idea... [11:54pm] DDR: #4 can't climb too well, though. [11:54pm] Jetrel: As a flier [11:54pm] Jetrel: I would start from the red_hornbug, and do it like this... [11:54pm] vultraz: no one likes my idea? :/ [11:55pm] DDR: I'm not sold. Switching abilities is not terribly... nice, right now. [11:55pm] DDR: It's not a twitch thing, it's something that takes a moment and some attention. [11:55pm] marcavis: well, lemme try some twist with that... [11:55pm] Jetrel: vultraz: holy crap you have a low threshold there, my friend. We're interested, I'm just too busy typing a response to DDR to respond yet. [11:56pm] Jetrel: DDR: It would have a few different "modes" to it's attack: 1] a fairly fast drop to even out in height with frogatto [11:56pm] DDR: Your enemy would be good if it hung back a bit, I think... :) [11:56pm] Jetrel: 2] a visible "charge up" where it flaps quickly as though about to dash [11:56pm] Jetrel: 3] a very fast forward burst of speed where it cannot climb very quickly. [11:57pm] DDR: You could ditch it by moving diagonally? [11:57pm] vultraz: Jetrel: sorry, I'm just kinda in a hurry ATM [11:57pm] Jetrel: DDR: yes [11:57pm] Jetrel: vultraz: well, I like your suggestion, so thank you. :) [11:57pm] DDR: vultraz: Can I add a condition to your enemy? It stops if you stop. [11:58pm] DDR: I do like the concept. Sorry if I'm being hard. [11:58pm] marcavis: so, twist on vultraz's idea - this guy would probably be annoying enough that we'd want him to be a miniboss of sorts [11:59pm] marcavis: so he follows you, and you have to keep running; just ahead, there's someone thowing stuff/shooting at both of you. stalker has a bit of a lag to his actions, so you time your dodges so that the shot hits your enemy [12:00am] ? DDR likes. [12:02am] vultraz: and he jumps over you ifd you turn around? [12:02am] DDR: Jetrel: To expand on your earlier Jellybug, how about an enemy of some sort that, when swallowed, makes Frogatto unable to move in mid-air and causes him to float upwards? [12:02am] Gambit (~gambit@wesnoth/developer/grickit) left the chat room. (Remote host closed the connection) [12:02am] ? Jetrel nods. [12:02am] DDR: An escape bug. [12:03am] DDR: I could also give Frogatto a little 'distance off the top of the screen' indicator. An arrow with numbers. And an achievement for getting high enough. :P [12:04am] DDR: Maybe not. [12:04am] Jetrel: Nope. [12:04am] DDR: Enemy #6: An enemy that heals other enemies. [12:04am] Jetrel: Oooh. [12:04am] DDR: Quickly. [12:04am] Jetrel: Would be more interesting in situations where you have to shoot at distant enemies. [12:05am] DDR: Yes. :) [12:05am] marcavis: http://www.theargentlark.com/screenshots/aac.png Jetrel, just added one more tile to this wall to the left, so it gets a bit easier to wall-jump into the platform [12:06am] Jetrel: marcavis: okay, sounds fine to me - that level could use a lot of nip-and tuck, so don't feel like you'd be stepping on toes to do more aggressive edits (for example I don't think the player should have to walljump out of that spot) [12:06am] DDR: How about a spore-mushroom that emits poisonous gas after you move by it? [12:06am] DDR: I seem to recall some enemy I did a while back that did something like that. [12:07am] DDR: A variation on the shooter plant, yes... [12:07am] DDR: I wonder what happened to that? [12:07am] marcavis: Jetrel, hmm true enough, as that spot isn't the way to some bonus, it's just escape or die [12:07am] Jetrel: DDR: shooter plant is being held in reserve for the forest graveyard. [12:07am] DDR: OK, good to know. [12:08am] Jetrel: And/or alteborea, later on. [12:08am] Jetrel: I need to redo its graphics. [12:08am] DDR: btw, technically hard, but it'd be neat to do a slime enemy that made Frogatto slide where it'd been. [12:09am] Jetrel: Sure. [12:09am] DDR: or -- really, just a slippery tile in general. [12:12am] DDR: Hm, might be interesting to have something to crawl up the sides of cliffs you have to jump on. [12:12am] Jetrel: Yeah. [12:13am] Jetrel: This is a fruitful brainstorming session. :) [12:13am] ? DDR nods. [12:15am] DDR: I'm going to have a whack, I guess, at making a little strategy AI framework. Smarter enemies are more fun, and most of the ones we've got are dumb as posts. [12:15am] DDR: In a few days, though. I'm busy atm. :( [12:16am] Jetrel: Well, that's nice, but are you interested in making any of these great ideas you just came up with? [12:16am] DDR: Yes. [12:16am] Jetrel: Good. [12:16am] DDR: The AI would let some enemies hang back if there was a heal-bug about, for instance. [12:17am] Jetrel: several major revisions overdue, but at long last... [12:17am] DDR: Or wait to press home the attack if the pack enemy was biding.

haplorrhine · 2013-07-22 19:16:46 UTC

An enemy (or machine) that operates spikes (and/or other traps). You can only predict which spikes are next by watching its behaviour. Once you reach it, you kill/destroy it to disarm the spikes.
Alternative: The spike-operator locks Frogatto inside his spike room, and monsters are released. Once the monsters are defeated, the spike-operator comes out to fight, and drops the key.

One idea I can think of would be an enemy that uses digging to appear and disappear. And tosses rocks at you, or something. a mole that appear from ground .. shoot and disappear again .. you must kill in the time when appear ..

Make them disappear when Frogatto gets too close, requiring projectiles from a distance.
This is why I thought Autumn Town’s out-of-reach squirrels were a fun challenge [i](dodge, dodge, jump + spit, dodge… go find another projectile… repeat)[i/].

DDR · 2013-07-30 17:26:41 UTC

We do have some digging worms in the caves, if that counts.

marcavis · 2013-09-06 16:12:16 UTC

<marcavis> some anglerfish enemy for frogatto would be cool, in some larger all-water levels <marcavis> maybe we keep with the mechanical theme, and it changes to a police alarm or something when attacking you <Phanterm> Yeah, I was thinking about drawing one. <marcavis> Or maybe it blinks and you hear a shutter sound :D <zookeeper> the anglerfish should be a harmless huge sea creature which just swims across the level and is the only source of light, so you'll need to stick close to it so you can see enemies etc <zookeeper> probably it should be something else than an anglerfish then, but you get the idea <Phanterm> I'm gonna take a break and play some Super Metroid. <jetrel_laptop> Phanterm: yeah - one thing I want to work on later is setting up some destructible blocks which can only be destroyed by fire. Should be really easy, but you might enjoy watching the process, and brainstorming about what to make them out of. <Phanterm> I'd like to see that, yeah. <marcavis> an eel that shoots off several bolts of lightning that travel a bit slowly, in random directions <Phanterm> I was actually thinking about a swordfish that charges at you after telegraphing its attack in a straight line. You would ideally lure it by standing in front of blocks you need to pass (since you can't break blocks with bubbles...?) and having it smash the block for you. <Phanterm> Was trying to come up with some underwater puzzles. <Sirp_> yeah I think a sword fish that points in that direction it's going to attack and "charges up" for like a second before moving quite fast until it hits a surface would be cool <Sirp_> maybe embedding its 'sword' in the first surface it hits and then shaking free. <Phanterm> I had some other ideas. Maybe using a giant, passive turtle as cover while it moves through a particularly rough underwater current to proceed through an area...but that would be tricky. <Phanterm> Since blocking a current doesn't really..."block" it. <jetrel_laptop> Yeah, we'd need to have more advanced mechanics for currents, but I'm sure that's doable. <marcavis> Maybe the swordfish doesn't actually charge, but sneezes its bill out at you <marcavis> or maybe does that as a feint first, then actually charges (more art in this case though)

Jetrel · 2014-01-05 17:03:49 UTC

a plant which walks back and forth and periodically fires shots in cardinal+diagonal directions.
a shelled plant which can fire some sort of shot at the character, but can immediately hide inside its shell
some sort of “plasma cannon” plant that covers a vertical area of a certain width.
some sort of plant which absorbs abuse of some kind (probably energy, could maybe be stuff like acid), and then fires it back at you
some sort of plant which rests on top of a pillar and has to have something specific thrown at it to placate it (think venus fly trap)
a plant which is immune to thorns, and is surrounded by them
a hazard which explodes into a group of small projectiles if it gets hit - possibly best if they don’t damage, but do some annoyance factor

Jetrel · 2014-07-13 10:04:09 UTC

[04:51:25] I think another easy puzzle to do would be to create a flat enemy that travels up and down along walls, both invulnerable and harmless (so more like an object?) [04:52:10] All it would do is knock you down if you touch it. So you could make some neat puzzles where you have to time your wall jumps with the movement of two different wall movers in order to ascend. [04:56:03] You could even up the ante later on by making a version of the object that does the same thing, except it actually damages you.

Agameofscones · 2014-07-16 17:27:58 UTC

This isn’t really a monster idea but in the barracks full of the some what friendly soldiers, you could add some costume variations (Like my profile picture) for some added eye candy. What you also could do is add some very minor costume variations that could be slapped on to a character without making a sprite sheet for it, like skins on valve models in TF2, if you could do something like this you could make some of the soldiers have a little more variation, if only minor, like an eye patch or a hat or something. I typed that in one minute, sorry if it isn’t clear.

Jetrel · 2014-07-16 17:33:31 UTC

On the barracks kitties, hats and such might actually be doable (and might be a good testbed for modular sprites). “Modular sprites” is our term for when one sprite (like a hat) gets automagically ‘attached’ to another sprite (like a character) and follows it around as though it’s being worn.

I’ve recently redone how they work, and the system is now robust enough to not go to crap every time a character moves, turns-around, or does anything (which is why we haven’t done this in the past - it was just flat-out broken, really).