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Last week I focused a lot on map design and such, so I figured I'd change it up this week and talk a little more about some of the other sides of the project. One of the things I mentioned in the first update and project description was the enemy scripting that I've been doing alongside the actual game design, and that's what the main focus will be today.
My philosophy with Sertraline is to pull out all the stops and make the game as professional and smooth as possible. I'm also generally dissatisfied with the Z1 enemies; I don't like how much they rely on the combo grid to move and I don't think they create a gameplay/atmosphere mismatch with Sertraline, where the look and feel of the game is very much not-Z1. With resources like ghost.zh it's not that hard to fix though, so I've been coding every enemy from "scratch," tweaking the behavior to be more in line with what you'd see in a more modern game.
Some of this is... well, honestly, probably a bit boring to read about. But from a technical standpoint it really excites me to finally come back to ZQ and find the tools to have this level of control over your product, and I hope there are other people that are inspired to take that control.
The first enemy I scripted was the Water Tektite. One thing that I always thought ZC lacked was a robust set of water-bound enemies; there's really only the Zora. The Water Tektite skates along the surface of the water, accelerating and decelerating in diagonal directions. This behavior is based on Link's Awakening; there were a lot of these guys in Angler's Tunnel.
I then went on to replace the Walker enemy type. This includes Moblins, Octoroks, and Robed Stalfos. These enemies are probably the least changed from their Z1 counterparts; they're free from the grid now, so they walk a random distance and sometimes fire the weapon they're set to hold.
One of the more complex enemies I've got is the Zol. The Zol is invisible (underground) until Link gets within range, at which point it hops out of the ground and starts jumping towards him. This is pretty close the the Zols in Link's Awakening; I've even got them tribbling, but I haven't scripted the Gels yet. Soon!
Everything looks fine...
oh god
Finally, we have the Flyer Thrower. This enemy hovers around, and if Link is in range, spits fire at him in an arc. This means that Link can't stay in the same place for long or he'll get hit. The Flyer Thrower is also too high for Link to reach without Roc's Feather, which adds some combat utility to the item and some neat room concepts where you have to fight the enemies over pits and such.
OH GOD
Can't even hit it...
Of course, I've also got the ones that I've submitted to the database; these include the Leever, Crab, and Dog Eventually I plan to submit all of the above enemies to the database.
Sorry if this update is a bit dry, but hopefully you enjoyed getting to know a little bit more about what I've been up to.
And of course, here's the song of the week:
Deerhunter - Operation - Weird Era Cont. [2008]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRH_EUaTy20
