Build 2 - Basic Enemies, Player Shooting and Level Blocking

During this week I worked on the basic enemy implementation for the game and a prototype shooting system for the player.  I also finalised the end zone player collisions and the level blocking system.

Currently the enemies are split into difficulties of Simple, Medium and Hard, split differentiated by movement speed, health and placeholder sprite colour (green orange/yellow and red respectively). Each enemy rotates to face its direction of travel.

Currently there are four paths that the enemies are able to traverse in order to reach the end of the course and attack the colony. The paths run right to left on the game screen and can be seen marked out by the differing coloured markers in the screenshot below:

The first marker on the right side for each colour is the start point for that path, the path continues onwards by order of closest marker of the same colour to the left, down, or up. Each path is implemented by storing an array of waypoint transforms, an array housing all paths is then fed to the enemy upon creation so it can randomly determine which path to traverse along to reach the last waypoint, also known as the enemy destroy point.

The player has a simple click to shoot attack system implemented which will impart a force onto a new bullet prefab that is sent towards the direction the mouse is pointing, with a slight position offset to match the weapon offset of the player sprite. The bullets are shot at a rate of once per click and disappear after a set amount of time or on collision. They do not collide with the tile map, only other enemies. See a demonstration of this and three demo enemies below (green is simple, yellow is medium and red is hard).

A collider was also placed at each end of the map to stop the player from being able to slip out of the map and get lost off-screen.

In the process of level blocking I used SciFi TDS Kit by AveryRe for the tile kit. See the textures used below:

dirt_tile.png	bedrock_underlay.png	crate.png	metal_tile.png	metal_underlay.png
This tile was used for the 'low ground', the area that both the players and the enemy units are able to traverse.	This tile is used for the cliffy 'high ground' are of the map, which also serves as an un-negotiable area for the player and enemies.	Non-functional decoration placed around the map to create a bit less monotony. May find more decoration type art in future for the tilemap	Used as one of two variations on the tower (turret) pad base material.	Used as the second of two variations on the tower (turret) pad base material.

hazard_tile_c1.png	hazard_tile_c2.png	hazard_tile.png	hazard_tile_c3.png	hazard_tile_c.4png
This is one of the hazard tiles used to outline the tower (turret) base pads. It is used as the bottom right corner of the outline.	This is one of the hazard tiles used to outline the tower (turret) base pads. It is used as the top left corner of the outline.	This is one of the hazard tiles used to outline the tower (turret) base pads. It is used as the siding of the outline.	This is one of the hazard tiles used to outline the tower (turret) base pads. It is used as the top right corner of the outline.	This is one of the hazard tiles used to outline the tower (turret) base pads. It is used as the bottom left corner of the outline.

During this week's testing and feedback session I was told random pathign looks to be working well, the game is still running fairly smoothly. There was a comment by one of the testers that they would like more incentive to move the player around, to try and address this in the future I will implement a player health and first aid kit / health pickup system and also a requirement for the player to be in proximity to a tower base pad in order to place/upgrade a tower. The general consensus was that the layout of the level works well and it looks nice.

Next week I will aim to polish the enemy system, adding a variable damage receival  method to the enemies to allow for different damage inputs along with making their movement visually smoother. The wave system and a basic game management system will also start to be implemented. This will hopefully accompany any other checkpoint items. I will also fix a bug I noticed while writing this (collision of bullets with the end collision zone).

Keep checking back for more updates!