Surprises in parts of the design

Akake on 2009/05/02 16:09 of The Laser Samurai

I'm surprised by how my game turned out.

For instance: In Rose Ninja, if you touch an enemy's shuriken that's stuck in the terrain, you take damage. Enemies do the same if they touch one of yours that is stuck in the terrain.
I originally thought that that would be an "Oh, that's kinda cool" sort of thing, but it has turned into something that has to be thought about in combat.

Also, spikes. When I came up with the idea, I just thought they'd be something that I'd throw in for the sake of it. Those spikes, when properly placed, become really important. In the level I'm working on now, level three, there is a spike pit. If you fall into it, you're pretty much dead. (Spikes don't kill you instantly, but do about four damage. They do knock you around, thought, even into eachother) However, if you can get the enemies to fall into it, the level become much easier.
In fact, the focus of level three is tricking the hordes of enemies to impale themselves on spikes. I like level three alot, by the by, but it is nice to have it come out better than level two, which... Well, it isn't bad but it isn't as good as I could have done.

I was also taken off guard by how the enemy AI turned out. I half-expected to have to re-write completely, because it was something I threw in when I was first writing the class, but it turned out to be very effective after surprisingly little tweaking.

Almost as surprising was the level loader system. I really expected my original loader to work. However, it really didn't. My plaintext system, though, is surprisingly effective.

This has been really interesting for me. I should have at least five levels by the end of the compo.

And, after I've submitted an entry that I'm happy with calling my final one, I'm going to start working on the Pyggy Awards version, which I'll elaborate on later today.

Needless to say, though, I've got big plans for Pyggy. Big plans that I'll do a bit at a time. ;-)

Anyhoo, I've been surprised at many parts of the design process here. I'm really anticipating everyone's entries, as well. ^o^

---Akake