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Friday 17 February 2012

Clash of the Titans

Here are a few mock-ups of four tile boss monsters, like you get in Legends of Yore. I know its not orthodox roguelike, but it's kind of an inevitable consequence of having such small tiles. Try as I might, I'll never fit a convincing dragon into a single tile, will I?

In Legends of Yore boss monsters pursue you, breaking down walls when necessary, but the opposite approach of having them trapped into certain areas could also work provided they have some means to attack hiding snipers. It would make the player nervous if they descend to a level with lots of double width corridors, especially if there are little scorpions scuttling about. Although giant monstrosities aren't a must, I think if used sparingly they add some scale and variety to the bestiary.

What do you think peeps, is anyone interested in having more of these?



P.S. - on this bottom image of the scorpions I have experimented a little with the representation of corpses. A quarter turn of rotation and a bit of desaturation and darkening does the trick quite nicely I think.



8 comments:

  1. I think the boss monsters actually look pretty cool... lets see some more :)

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  2. btw... are you planning on adding any overworld tiles? We'll need something to view when travelling from one dungeon to the next ;)

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    1. Yes, there will overworld graphics for sure. Aside from buildings, I plan on having rivers, multi tile trees and cliffs (a bit like the ones in the original Command and Conquer). That'll be a way off at the moment though.

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  3. You've got some very nice tiles there. Thanks for making these available - I'll see if I have the time to make something with these later this year.

    Regarding large monsters, I think they look very cool and have more character than the smaller monsters, thanks to the extra pixels. Of course they introduce some additional complexity programming-wise. I think it's best to stick to square-shaped monsters - i.e. 2x2 or maybe even 3x3 or 4x4 (for some serious eldritch abominations). Some games have 2x1 or 1x2 monsters, but I think that kind of breaks the suspension of disbelief when the monster can go through doors horizontally but not vertically (or vice versa).

    The corpse rotation thing is a nice idea, but I think a bit more desaturation or darkening is needed. As they are, the corpses stand out too much.

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    1. Cheers Anon,

      You're right about the saturation of the corpses, It was just a suggested transformation for people to apply in game so I'm looking forward to seeing what people implement.

      with regards to larger monsters, the only other shape I had planned were multi tile chain monsters (like serpents, worms, millipedes), that would move like the game snake. I think they could make for some interesting gameplay especially in complex cave systems.

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    2. Chain monsters are a good idea. I'll see what you come up with.

      BTW, centipedes are predators while millipedes are not. Both are underrepresented in games, though :)

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  4. Loving your art still. Can't wait for the overworld tiles!

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  5. Looks great!! Keep up the good work with this.. :)

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