Week 5 - Enemy AI, Title Screen

This week was a lot of work thrown in; a lot of which was quick easy stuff to design. The only really hard thing to create were the enemy AI

Enemy AI

This week's primary goals was to create function AI. I created two distinct enemies: a swordsman (Fig.1) and mage (Fig.2). It took a lot of effort with a lot of bugs (some still exist at the end of this week).

I ran into many problems with creating the AI. Incorrect animation timings, enemy velocity inputs incorrect, attack sequences not playing effectively, and more. Fig.3 and Fig.4 are just some examples of the enemy not function as intended.

I added some invisible jump pads so that the enemies could theoretically jump at specially locations, and removing some code helped mitigate Fig.4's problem.

I even ran into some errors with the mage where it wouldn't teleport and then at points it caused stack overflow errors.

Eventually, I got the enemies to a stable position, to where next week I will mostly polish up their animations for the main battle the player will face them in.

Title Screen

The title screen was really easy to make. I used Fig.5 as the background image and created the following title screen with some background music in Fig.6.

Do note that "play" button in fig.6 will function by the end of this week once the final stage is complete.

Feedback

I got some really great feedback about current build so far. I've decided to give in about people's comments about the lack of air controls. Despite me liking the restriction it gives, a lot of people really do not like the restriction, so next week I'll give air controls to the player.

I also got some feedback about asking for player controls for controllers, but due to the UI I've developed and the lack of time I have left, I have decided to not include controller support. An unfortunate circumstance but with my UI, I will have the time to develop a new interface for players with controllers. But I have received praise for my ability icons being really responsive.

There's a general consensus that people like my abilities as well which is wonderful to hear. I would love to dedicate more time to each ability and create proper testing environments for them, but alas, I don't have the time to develop that, so its great to hear that despite this, people still enjoy them. One thing I do wish I did was get rid of the shield and basic attack to allow a pure magic fight style.

I did also get some feedback that people wanted more cues of the player taking damage. I currently only have an animation that can be hard to spot and a sound cue. I do plan to add some screen effects next week like a minor blood flash on the side of the screens to better emphasis the player taking damage.

There are also a few bugs that I need to fix such as the frozen death screen.