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[Deedee]

Welcome to Enemy of the Month Season 2, Episode 2! This month's theme was Shadow Temple, and we have 5 entries!
 
Please look through the enemies and vote honestly and fairly. Submit your votes for the following categories:

• Best Overall Enemy: The best overall enemy this month.
• Most Useful Enemy: The most useful enemy this month that everyone can/could use in their quest.
• Most Creative Enemy: The most creative enemy designed this month.
• Most Entertaining Enemy: The most entertaining enemy designed this month.

 

 

YouTube Video
To watch all these enemies in action without downloading any of the enemies, view the video below!:


 
All Enemies Download Link
If you wish to download all the enemies in one get go, click on the following link. This is done so that you don't have to download all the enemies individually: https://www.mediafir...nemies.zip/file
 
The Enemies
Here is all the information and download links for the enemies this month.

Gloom Hands - Moosh

• Enemy Name: Gloom Hands
• Description: It's the Gloom Hands from Tears of the Kingdom, also sometimes referred to as Gloom Spawn. Come to think were these things ever referred to by name in the actual game since they lack a compendium entry? Anyways, they'll chase you between screens with the help of an additional script. Should you choose to fight them, they're a pain to deal with up close so hang back and snipe them at a distance.
• Version of ZQuest: 255 nightly-2023-10-28
• Quest File: https://www.mediafir.../GloomHands.zip

Archvile - Moosh

• Enemy Name: Archvile
• Description: It's the Archvile from Doom II, requested by FireSeraphim. He'll wander around reviving enemies in the room you've killed until you take him out. If you make line of sight with him, he'll light an explosive fire on top of you that launches you backwards.
• Version of ZQuest: 255 nightly-2023-10-28
• Quest File: https://www.mediafir...fi/Archvile.zip

Revenant - Moosh

• Enemy Name: Revenant
• Description: It's the Revenant from Doom II, also requested by FireSeraphim. When you make line of sight with him he fires a projectile that either travels straight or homes in on you. It explodes on contact and does friendly fire damage to other enemies.
• Version of ZQuest: 255 nightly-2023-10-28
• Quest File: https://www.mediafir...le/Revenant.zip

Vashta Nerada - Bagu

• Enemy Name: Vashta Nerada
• Description:
  Long Description

  The Vashta Nerada are a reace of living shadows, apprering in the BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who
  ...the Scripted NPC also acts like "Weeping Angels" from, the series.
  
  It hides in true shadows and disguises as a shadow itself, until someone gets close enough to attack him.
  As soon as alive, they chase their target, unless gets out of range. If so, they return to their shelter (x/y spawn position)
  If you face em, they'll disguise as shadow again, and gt alive again, as soon as you turn around
  (very much like 4-way "Boohs" (from Mario Brothers))
  
  You can't hit or even kill, the Vashta Nerada, they are shadows of evil, that benefit from light, love and life
  ...unlit the source of liht, they benefit from or move the object that casts the shadow, out of the light, to defeat em.
  
  They're very flexible, since they're usually supposed to be created by scripted FFCs.
  So, they can cause a lot of custom touch effects, for example
  ...those effects have to be called by an additional active her- or global script
  
  ...all nessesary functions and scripts + detailed description and setup instructions are contained in the compiled zs file.
  I also added the actual file in the zipped download, so there's no need to export the script, from ZQ.
  
  I would be good, for the preview, to get hit, by various shadows. ...to present all custom touch effects.
  
  
  
  Demo Quest Clues:
  
  

  Spoiler

  1) Get downstairs from the start screen
  (the entrance/exit door behind you is shuttered, you can only open it by hitting all torches, but you have no weapon.
  
  2) Next Screen : push a block to get into the next room, watch out for the shadows
  
  3) Door Up = Open (you'll get the sword in the room above, by solving its puzzle)
  the doors left and riht are shuttered, you can open em, by hitting all torches
  ...but you can also et certain, blue Vashta Nerada shadows get you, cause they have warping abilities
  and some of em, warp to rooms behind these shutters (left / right)
  
  4) I put to protection items (touch effects: confusion & poisen) in the demo and 1 pick up, heal (all effects)
  they hidden in rooms, behind the shuttered doors, in the room below the "sword room"
  
  5) As soon as you have solved the entire stuff (or if to much, as soon as you got the sword) you can return to the start screen, hit all torches, and leave the dungeon (the game will end, in this caase)

  
  
  I used all effects in the demo, excepting the "Curse" Tuch Effect, which drains Magic
  ...it would smply be to much, for a brief preview
• Version of ZQuest:  2.55 Alpha 118
• Quest File: https://www.dropbox....d35wi4pupf&dl=0

Shadow Amalgam - Lejes

• Enemy Name: Shadow Amalgam
• Description: Some things are more than the sum of their parts.
• Setup:
  
  Setup

  
  Main Enemy
  

  D0: Min Size
  InitD0: Max Size
  InitD1 Size Change
  InitD2: Attack Timer
  InitD3: Shadow Mini ID
  

  Sub Enemy
  

  D0: Min Size
  InitD0: Acceleration
  InitD1 Absorb SFX
  

  Default values substituted if left at 0.
• Version of ZQuest: 9-26-2023 Nightly
• Quest File: Shadow Amalgam

 

 

Thanks everyone for entering! I'll be closing the poll on Monday The 13th. Now, vote and discuss!

[Bagu]

...I'm not gonna leave a vote
...but my personal overall favourite is Moosh's "Gloom Hands", grandious enemy

Edited by Bagu, 05 November 2023 - 07:11 AM.

[Moosh]

And here I was thinking my entry was a bit too large for having the small overworld to showcase the pathfinding. Anyways, thoughts on the other two entries:

 

Vashta Nerada: This is a cool idea. I can think of all sorts of ways an enemy that hides in shadows could be cool and tying it to objects in the room and the light being beneficial to a shadowy enemy is a neat idea too. The tricky thing is telegraphing that connection, much of which which comes down to the level design. 

Shadow Amalgam: Really fun enemy. I love the effect when they combine together and grow. It's super satisfying.

[Bagu]

And here I was thinking my entry was a bit too large for having the small overworld to showcase the pathfinding.

 

I also thought, my test quest file would be to large, for a brief preview.
But it's been nessesary, to present as many of my custom touch effects as possible.
I took those effects, from my old experimental (and still unfinished stuff).
The "Cursed" effect, isn't used in the test quest......it's like the poisened effect (but frequently draining MP, instead of HP
(just like negative Magic Rings)), for variable duration.
...or otherwise (if settin "Cursed" - duration to "-1") it's permanently keeping MP = 0, till the curse is removed.
(that's the only effect which is continous after saving,dying, (re)loading))

BTW
...I think the Shadow Almagam would be a perfect Vashta Nerada Boss NME....
In fact, I actually had the idea to create one more version of the Vashta Nerada, which is conecting and growing
on collision, with each other Shadow NPC.

Edited by Bagu, 05 November 2023 - 07:12 AM.

[Lejes]

Nobody:

Moosh: 

 

That is a really clean implementation of A* pathfinding. Trying to wrap my head around how you got the Gloom Hands so wiggly and wavy, wow.

[Blackpaintbowser]

I've actually wanted gloom hands for my quest. if someone could tell me how to set it up that would be helpful.

[Moosh]

I've actually wanted gloom hands for my quest. if someone could tell me how to set it up that would be helpful.

Setup isn't too complicated. There's just a bunch of scripts:

• The NPC script goes on the enemy and doesn't have any customization aside from HP, damage, and step speed. The enemy's tiles are all relative to the one set in the editor and go in the order used there. Its arguments listed in the script tab are meant to be set by the FFC script
• The DMap script goes on the DMap and lets the hands follow you between screens
• The FFC script goes on spots where you want to spawn the hands. Consult the [?] buttons for setup.
• The combo script goes on combos the hands can't cross.

That is a really clean implementation of A* pathfinding. Trying to wrap my head around how you got the Gloom Hands so wiggly and wavy, wow.

Big shock, it's held together by classes and then more classes. The A* uses objects for the nodes, the arms are an object with an array of objects with an array of objects. Just yoinked some code for simple rope physics and reproduced it in ZScript. Then gave them a slight sine wave pulsating pattern and drew the arms with quads. Sometimes the quads intersect and it looks really bad, but my attempts to fix those cases looked worse. 
 
Also realizing it completely slipped my mind to credit Ether for the sprites used for the hands. Without her involvement the script wouldn't have been possible.

[Deedee]

The true horror of a Monday is realizing it wasn't Monday, but a Wednesday all along.

Our winners are!:

Best Overall: Gloom Hands (Moosh)
Most Useful: Vashta Nerada (Bagu)
Most Creative: Gloom Hands (Moosh) AND Vashta Nerada (Bagu)
Most Entertaining: Gloom Hands (Moosh)

I'd like to give a special shoutout to the enemies that didn't win anything though; Shadow Amalgam was my favorite non-gloom-hand enemy, I love the effect where they combine, and I could see some really interesting dynamics with other enemies. Speaking of other enemy dynamics, the Revenant was a really unique enemy; you never see friendly-firing enemies in ZC, and I'd love to see puzzles based around it provided they're fun. Lastly, the Archvile's line of sight based attacks was a cool way to have the environment play a part in fighting the enemy; I love the flame being left behind when they stop having eyesight with you.

Thank you all for entering!