Prototyping

Chad’s Prototype Sprint #3

For my third and final prototype sprint I began designing some basic enemies players could expect to encounter within the game. It was mainly a demo of their behavior and how they would deal with the player. I had programmed their movement and actions without any damage values or player a player health system. I had hoped to learn what my peers thought of the enemy types I had already demonstrated and asked them if they could think of any interesting enemy types that they had encountered in games they have played previously. I was offered numerous enemy designs that I could clearly envision and even had concepts in mind for their programming. I learned that people were responding to the question well and were giving me a large variety of enemy behaviors unique to each other. However, I also realized that picking which enemies would fit my games theme and play-style is going to require testing in real game levels. There will undoubtedly be enemies left hidden in the game files that will be cut from the final product. One of my favorite suggestions was to allow certain enemy types to use various senses to detect the player. For example: certain enemies will only be able to hear or even smell the player but have their vision restricted. This has been used in video games in the past and can make the players experience more dynamic and varied. If executed correctly players can find themselves in some thrilling situations. The difficulty will be in the execution as you do not want to base single levels off the gimmick of one enemy type. I would consider this a failure in design as I would be foregoing a more interesting experience for the player for a rigid and less interesting level. I do not want my players getting too comfortable with enemies or levels as I intend to promote a more fluid type of play-style.

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