User blog comment:Smash The Echidna/Splice The Hedgehog Updates Blog/@comment-1942179-20121128171606

Okay so, I pretty much worked through the rest of the night. (after spending 4 of those hours doing handiwork around the house.) I did some testplaying, and now I've gone and gotten quite a bit done.

First of all, I finally got around to doing that one thing that I'd been planning for a long time now. I haven't quite implemented it into the main game yet, but it works pretty swell.

Using the same method I had for collecting rings, (later altered a bit to cut down on lag) I managed to make enemies that appear on the field. Touch them, and you get into a battle. These are intended to completely replace random encounters. (except maybe on the world map, but we'll see.) I originally planned to make sprites for just about all of them, but I soon scrapped that idea after making just one, and decided to just go by categories. See here.



From left to right; Crawlas represent Ground based enemies. Bat Brains represent Flying enemies. Spikebonker here is a mixed bag of both. And Orbinaut has other enemies that usually (but not always) have some kind of event related. They could be flying or ground based; the point is that they have something unique. I don't have much in his category yet except for the bombs.

Now, these different types of enemy groups don't serve too big of a purpose other than to sort things out a bit and let you know what you'll be fighting. And to make them more unique, they each move differently, though they all head towards you one way or another. Crawlas are slow, and generally keep moving towards you but may waver along the way. Bat brains are quick and pretty erratic. They'll be pretty annoying to get by. Spikebonkers are very fast, but can only move one space at a time. Orbinaut never looks back; it will always be chasing you. But it's speed keeps changing from fast to slow, so while it may be easy to outrun, it can come back and surprise you.

This system should work wonders for the attack on GFC. You'll still probably be getting in a lot of encounters, but at least they won't be completely random and so much of a hindrance. Also, if you successfully run away from an enemy, they'll be temporarily stunned.

I still do intend to keep the invisible trap spaces where the buzz bombers/bat brains swoop down and attack you, but there will only be a few left in certain areas. Having more visible badniks on the screen will make it seem much more like the city is under attack and not just you being bothered by bugs swooping down from nowhere.

Still, given the fact that I kinda nerfed Splice a bit, this should be a lot easier on the guy early on.

This was pretty tough to do. I encountered a lot of problems, mainly regarding lag, but I eventually managed to fix it. And in the process of fixing it, I upgraded the invincibility. It looks better than ever. Finally, you can actually use it the way it SHOULD be used. That and I changed the sparkles. Here's how it looks now.