Week 10 - Enemies and Interactions

Where the game sits:

The game now consists of two playable levels, with enemies that fire at the player, causing damage when bullets connect. As is stands, the bullets are placeholders, as the bullet sprite is currently in development.

What’s new:

This update adds enemies to the game, with sprites and animations being finished and implemented. Animations for the enemy includes an idle animation and a walking/running animation. Enemies exist in three different colours; green, pink and red. Enemies will shoot at the player, with bullets being destroyed on impact or after 1 second of travel. Enemy movement is triggered by the player entering a set radius from the enemy, after which, the enemy will move horizontally in the direction of the player. Enemies also have a ‘ground-check’ in front of them, which keeps them on the platform that they start on. These enemies have been implemented in the newly added second level, which primarily focuses on introducing the player to these enemies and the game mechanics associated with that (shooting (coming soon), getting shot at etc.). I have also added a script to the door on the first level, which will now load the second level when the player collides with it.

This update also brings a UI visual for the players health. The player has a total health of 4, allowing the player to be hit by 3 bullets before dying. The player’s health is represented by 4 hearts in the top left of the game. As the player is hit, one heart is taken off from the top left. If the player loses all hearts, they will die and respawn at the start of the current level.

Visualization:

Enemy sprite (also in green and pink)

Enemy shooting:

Player hearts /taking damage:

Feedback and testing:

Player feedback from this week’s playtesting suggested that the UI hearts for the player’s lives were too small. This is something that I agree with and will fix in a future update.

Future updates:

An enemy and player hit animation will also be added to the game, which will play upon impact with a bullet. Player shooting will also be implemented shortly, as well as a title screen.