Act II - The Hole (Patreon)

I'm having fun with some advanced tweaks that will certainly pay off in Act II! In this new environment, the third dimension will become much more prominent during fights and exploration!

That's why MUCH needed to be tweaked.

Neneko

Our catgirl really needs to know how to move around if she wants to survive. Many spots need a bit of platforming (while I'll keep the HARD ones just for special rewards) and many Relics will become really useful. Life-savingly so. Even though she has 9. Lives.

• Made sure multiple jumps aren't normally possible, regardless of Neneko's Agility
• The Feather Relic can now be used to travel long distances while jumping mid-air (see screenshot above)!
• To determine the fall damage, the last jump's height will be considered the starting one. Neneko can jump off a plane right before it crashes to the ground and walk away like nothing happened (hey, it's magic).

Enemies and monsters (both Ranged and Melee)

If the new layer was simply made of a series of flat rooms, this wouldn't have been an issue. But in this mountainous area, it was certainly important to have enemies know how to behave while moving around a perilous maze of rocks, cliffs, and falls to death!

• Enemy units won't simply walk towards Neneko if they'd fall to death in order to do so. Every type of enemy has a max fall parameter, which determines how many Z levels they're allowed to jump down in order to reach Neneko.
• The same behavior is followed when they're doing an attack jump or dash in direction of Neneko, they will now check carefully if that would spell DEATH.
• Enemies will now disengage if the player moves to a higher Z level compared to them unless they're separated by slopes.
• There are also special places, like the spiderweb in the screenshot above, which are huge walkable events. Convincing enemies they can walk confidently on them (since the "map" says that at those coordinates, they'd fall down to their death) wasn't easy, but I've found a workaround that works nicely and won't need many calculations (which becomes vital if there are many enemies at once):

Enemy already on a platform -> Can attack and jump around freely

Enemy on normal terrain / Neneko on normal terrain -> They'll assume THERE ISN'T a platform to walk on in order to reach Neneko. That's why they WON'T walk off the edges. 

Enemy on normal terrain / Neneko on a platform -> They'll assume THERE IS a platform to walk on in order to reach Neneko. That's why they WILL walk off edges. 

Enemies and monsters (Ranged)

Act II is the first part of the game with actual "moving" ranged units (Act I had the Belladonna family of plant monsters), 

• Ranged units have an attack range, if you're too far they'll try to reduce the distance with Neneko, if you're too close they'll try to distance themselves
• If the distance is fine for their cross/bow (kobolds use bows, dwarves have sturdy crossbows~) they'll try to get a clear shot of Neneko, either in a straight line or diagonally. How serious they are about precision can change in different units.
• If they have their back to a wall, they'll ignore the minimum range, and just fire at Neneko after moving to get a clear shot (if needed)!
• Projectiles have a size (which influences how much the enemy needs to move in order to shoot with confidence at Neneko) and type parameters! Their type (arrow, fireball...) determines what they can pass through (the arrows in the screenshot go through the obstacles the kobolds have placed in the way to their nest) and if they trigger secondary effects (fireballs can trigger explosions if they hit the right target)!

Let's stop here, for now, I just wanted to make sure you know I'm always working on something that will make Nekohole much more enjoyable in the long run! I will have soon to talk about what I've planned for the Dwarves VS Kobolds mechanics of Act II, but let's wait until I have something (showy) to show for it!