Top-down shooter enemy types

[Josh]

I have an idea for a game example I would like to make for Leadwerks 5. It's basically a cross between Contra 3 and Alien Swarm, except I just played Alien Swarm and it wasn't actually fun at all.

Looking at the old Nintendo games, the reason they were fun was because you had constantly changing mechanics. Fighting the same enemy more than a couple times in a row is very boring. Fighting a new enemy with a new weapon in brief sprints is what made them fun. So I think variety is necessary to make something that doesn't feel like a boring tech demo.

Let's assume the enemies are alien bugs. You've got your soldier, which just does a melee attack. We can make them buzz in on wings to make them appear in some parts, or possibly make them crawl out of the ground. (I did not play very far into Alien Swarm so I just saw one enemy.)

Then there are acid bugs, which look different and can spit acid, like the bullsquid in half-life. Those projectiles will provide something interesting to dodge, and you will need to prioritize taking those things out.

Alien eggs can be strewn about, and if you break them they emit green smoke and a bunch of little babies pop out and come running at you. If one egg hatches it can induce the other eggs nearby to also hatch. Maybe the babies are little exploding Kamikazes.

Staying within this theme, do you have any other ideas for enemy types with different attack behaviors?

[gamecreator]

The goal is to not have the player mindlessly shoot the closest thing to him all the time (as with all games, really).

I've seen healers in these types of games which actively avoid the player.  They either heal enemy creatures, provide armor or shielding or make them immune entirely.  If there are a lot of creatures getting a buff, it's worth it to get to the healer first.

Related to your acid mechanic, you could also have eggs or other creatures explode and leave a pool of acid behind for a time.  Walking over this will do enough damage to you that you'll want to avoid it but it may be worth taking the hit to get to a better position.

I've seen enemies that have shielding/plating in the front (typically making them invincible there) but are weak from the back.  This would also benefit coop with a person on each side.

Lots of other games out there to get ideas from like Metaverse Keeper, Moon Hunters and Hero Siege.  But if you want creativity, check out Binding of Isaac.

[Marcousik]

13 hours ago, Josh said:

Looking at the old Nintendo games, the reason they were fun was because you had constantly changing mechanics. Fighting the same enemy more than a couple times in a row is very boring.

I was asking me why games became mostly boring with time (for me)  - and that's why I began to have more fun trying to make a game than playing it ! - and I found a few possible reasons for this:

- Biological: I'm out of my childhood and immersion in virtuality is not more so simple crazy as it was.

- Games development in the time of morrowind until skyrim made a big big step inviting players to try more and more and always new coming features. Through technik development, worlds became bigger, Graphics better, story and animation cooler, everything became very very attractive ......until the same began to be repeated and not more created; always more or less the same game mechanics got repeated because they were once succesfull. For example for this ubisoft games, always the same procedure, big map, good graph, and "?" pointing everywhere.

- Gameplay: Look at the possibility the player has to interact with the world; in so much games it becomes always the same. I mean the only interaction that the player can use to operate on the world is his weapon: Sword, bow, magic or gun. Graphics feature got over developped (well I like good looking  games too) and overrated to let this game aspect forgot? Interactions player-world are sometimes so poor in moder games AAA, no surprise for me players get bored.

In conclusion, seems to be like the chance to make a new experience through gaming got in my opinion reduced with time and furture games that keep players awake and curious, feeding the player with immersion, adrenalin, possibilities in its own endlessly fantasy have to be constantly re-invented. That is the betting challenge developpers have and it is really nothing simple to reach.