Hi everyone!
It's been a while since I last updated here. I've been busy the last few months with the development of some level 2 enemies. The new level is based around the knife boss, so the enemy design has shifted a bit to a more cut out style, and I've used a black background to contrast with the light bullets. There's still a bit of work to do on the visuals to tie it all together.
The first one I worked on was this worm thing which comes in various lengths and splits up when you destroy it's parts. If it's long enough it'll spew out some vertical walls of bullets...
These bats are pretty simple, but I had a play about with their spawning animation to get the knife coming in. I'm also planing a specific mid level attack from the knife which will introduce some bullet patterns.
This is an early version of the a simple fish type enemy that swims in formation.
I thought they were maybe a bit too basic tho, so I decided to make them scatter when the player dashes or pounds through them. They self destruct after a couple of seconds if you do so, but they won't give you any points this way - taking out large groups like this is much quicker tho, so you're more likely to get a good time bonus multiplier at the end of the level...
These Thwomp style enemies can be used to take out other enemies as well if you time it right. I've added a better visual cue to indicate they're about to fall since I made this gif...
I also took some time to beef up some of the visuals - bullets are much chunkier now, the death ink splats hang around a bit longer before fading away, and there's a bit more impact to the dash move which hopefully makes it feel more satisfying.
I'm pretty happy with the progress on level 2 so far. I've got a few more ideas to try out and then I'll be able to start thinking about the level design.
Cheers!
Graeme
