[Game Dev] New Enemies & Weapon (Patreon)

It's been a while since I last did any game development work, but I sat down for a bit this weekend to solve some old problems and implement some new features.

Axe Sub-Weapon

Initially, I didn't plan to feature the axe. Instead vastly preferring Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon's options for a diagonal attack - like Miriam's Rapiers. So, that's what I chose... 

But there are some quirks with how they work under the hood as well as limits to my understanding of how GameMaker handles collisions... So I decided to go with the familiar axe instead.

It's a simple feature, as I had designed an enemy attack that functioned similarly before. While I may choose to one day refine the axe's arc, it basically works as you'd expect it to. It still uses assets from CV, so I'll need to replace it with an original design...

Enemy: Hunchback / Flea Man

The Flea Man, although annoying, is one of the most important staples of Castlevania. They're weak, but they jump all over the place and can often overwhelm players. Annoying behaviors like that are essential to provide a diverse variety of enemy patterns within a level.

I struggled to get enemy jumping right for months. They would move up and then immediately fall down, which doesn't resemble the smoother jump arc of the player. That means if moving, their jump would look like an upside-down V instead of an upside-down C. It looked bad.

In studying this, I also came to better understand the Flea Man... When close to the player, he actually has a high chance of jumping very high - so it's actually possible to bait them out and wait under their jump arc if you position yourself correctly.

That said, this monster is using art from CV3. So I'll need to replace it with an original design.

Enemy: Gillman / Merman

This enemy jumps up from below the camera and lands on walk-able terrain. They're a classic, first introduced in the very first level of the original Castlevania.

These enemies were particularly tough, and were my first attempt to make a jumping enemy last year (I gave up at the time). When the player comes within range of their X position, they will spring to life and begin acting. But they're a little too easy like this, so I'll have to one day allow them to spawn directly below the player or create a trigger that activates them - so they only spring to life at the exact moment I want -- when a player is jumping over a gap.

I'd like to create an additional sprite for when they're jumping onto the screen. Maybe give them a smaller projectile instead of just re-using a fireball from another enemy also.

Don't forget to eat & sleep.