Anyway, back on topic, the first major ‘new’ enemy is actually an ‘old’ enemy redone, but I don’t think there’s any shame in that. If you’ve been following this for some time you may remember the ‘Evil Mother‘ enemy. Well, I’d come to the conclusion that this enemy just wasn’t big enough and would work better (and make more sense) as some kind of mini mothership that spilled out its occupants when destroyed.
So I spent quite some time designing a kind of ‘bathysphere’ type craft. It’s actually several different sprites in one, the ship itself, the pilot, the ‘antennae’ on the top which acts as a weapon, plus the various lights. I’m pretty pleased with the result though a little worried it looks a bit too ‘2D’ and could do with some more shading or something to make it appear more ’rounded’.
I also increased the size of the enemies that spill out when the craft is destroyed and spent quite some time working on a much improved bullet that tracks the player’s movement in a similar way to the Limpet Mine. There’s also a ‘tell’ that the ship is going to fire as you can see the antennae at the top charging up.
The shaking effect is achieved by applying an offset to the ships position each frame. These offsets are always evenly distributed and chosen at random so it’s a very predictable type of brownian motion.
I think I’m going to use the original enemy design as more of a ‘swarm’ type enemy with a movement type that’s an homage to the original Space Invaders!
Dev Time: 3 days
Total Dev Time: approx 159 days
Final Artwork And Fire Animation
Dodging Bullets
Mothership vs Gravity Hammer & Gamma Ray
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