Concept 1:4 - Dynamic Weather and Enemy Behaviors

[Dan]

Original Post:

The entire zone's badniks change behaviour.

- They all migrate to trees and shelter to stay dry. Suddenly rain becomes hunting season as you run around catching clusters of goofy badniks.

- They continue as usual but their motion is simply toned down in response to being rained on. Flying badniks are now walking or hopping around on the ground, etc.

- One particular badnik turns into a nightmare. A real nightmare, as if water to him is spinach to Popeye. I would like this idea because I would like to see more playful badniks in any Sonic game, however this is bucking the trend of classic Sonic badniks. But I do really like the idea of the player seeing the rain and approaching the outdoors with actual fear of the psycho badniks. Perhaps that's a better idea than shields for avoiding the outdoors.

[ila]

I find this to be an interesting concept to start experimenting with. Badniks were never known to have any in depth AI, except for maybe Skorp (asshole). Still, the point in Sonic games never was to kill all badniks either, so I don't see the whole concept for hunting work too well.

Instead I'd like to focus more on the badnik that gets meaner in the rain. I'm thinking something electricity based. Any more ideas?

[DimensionWarped]

Skorp's AI can be summed up into two steps.

Roll around lazily.

If Sonic is near by rape his face with my mace tail.

[Rawr]

I'm liking the sound of an electricity based badnik Ila. It'd make sense that he'd be a proper hazard. Perhaps in the rainy areas if you jump on a platform he'll send shocks through that platform if he is standing on it with you, but can only do this in rainy areas (plus it wouldn't be instant, you'd have time to get out of the way).

Maybe in some areas you can have fish badniks just flopping around, but sometimes flash floods can happen and it fills up a certain area for a brief bit of time which makes them not flop around. Of course if you get him by them when flopping you'd still get hurt.

[Dan]

Just seeing fish badniks left helpless to flop around after a flood would be amusing. Silly little bugger.

As for the hunting season, well I just meant it as kind of a joke. Bit like that fish idea too really because the fun would just be in discovering the odd group of badniks all clustered together hiding from the rain under a tree or wotnot, and knowing you just found a fun little bonus. You're gonna crack open maybe 5 in one jump if you get it right, then continue on your way.

Maybe they'll launch whatever attacks they can from their dry spot. Five trapped Buzzers opening fire. Or add to the humour with the group either trying to avoid you while staying dry, or turning and running through the rain as they individually see Sonic approach. Perhaps fritzing out as they go. Just laughs really. Actually hunting through a zone for badniks doesn't float my boat much either.

I haven't really got any smart ideas for the powerful badnik. I'm just keen on him actually putting fear into the player; I'd really like that. Literally the boogieman of the zone, the player enters the rain... stressing. Remember the ghosts at full power in Sandopolis? I'm thinking of something that keeps you on your toes more than that. If you want to explore you're better off doing it earlier or later when it's not raining in that area.

But :/... I have no actual suggestions for how to implement that yet.

[DimensionWarped]

If you want it to be really scary, you should make it to where you can only see it faintly except when lightning strikes.

[Dan]

Yup that's exactly the feeling I'd love. Keeping your eyes peeled amid fear and panic. Noice. It could be used to really increase the value of rolling too. Played Toejam & Earl? The boogieman in that was fantastic.

The lightning means the badnik might not even have to change behaviour with the weather. In the sunlight you can see plainly how he behaves and it's no huge deal. Then once you realise he's practically invisible, the memory of how he works suddenly matters. Buttermoths, for example, are always moving towards you. Absolutely nothing when you can see them but potential terror when hidden in a storm. You know they're coming. Love it hehehe.

Perhaps light would prime this badnik, so visible recognition due to lightning also means an attack just got switched on and in 2 seconds you're going to be dealing with it, invisible as it is. Eg, said buttermoths could be seen to dash at you in the daytime, when the occasional sunbeam falls on them or they move out of the shadows. I don't know... something so the player can understand what is happening with the lightning. Any successful attack would also need the badnik to reappear so the player can register what has happened.

This powerful enemy concept can go in other directions too of course, but I like the scary ideas.

[DimensionWarped]

Another thing people tend to be scared of are things that swallow you whole. Dope Fish, Boss Bass, that thing from Jak and Daxter... fish mostly.

[FanGameRevolver]

Another thing people tend to be scared of are things that swallow you whole. Dope Fish, Boss Bass, that thing from Jak and Daxter... fish mostly.

something like the sonic rush blizzard peaks boss?

[DimensionWarped]

No, on account of there really being nothing that scary about being inside of a robot the size of a whale.

[Rawr]

Maybe if its by an area thats closer to the water, the water level will start to rise and if it rises to a certain point then this big fish badnik appears and the only way to really get rid of him is to drain out the water in the area via some means. Almost like the ghost idea from Sandopolis.

[DimensionWarped]

And to make it a scary fish badnik, you can make it have obvious slicy grinding stuff in it's mouth so that it's obvious that when it eats you, you are dead for real.

[Ironrind]

In the genesis game "kid chameleon", some stages start of with light rain/snow and progress into heavy storms. Once the storm is at max, spikes of hail fall to the ground and hurt the player. It makes being outside or above ground a real hassle. I think something similar could be done.

I posted an artificial time based weather system here working towards that idea, although wrapping needs work. While in the rain, a persistent Zeus like bot could throw lightning bolts(or something rain related). He could follow you around until you reach shelter. Think of the cloud riding enemy from Supermario Bros.

While inside, rain could drip inside sometimes creating pools of water for interesting effects. Puddles would splash while being ran through like the snow piles from Icecap Zone.

Knuckles underground route in Angle Island Act 1 comes to mind. If given a choice, the rain path could be faster paced to satisfy the want for speed, while underground would be more treacherous, murky, and possibly slower paced.

[Dan]

Good ideas... I like the suggestion of rain being the faster and perhaps preferred environment. No-one's really said that so far heh.

But really everything except the Zeus-bot you wrote about there should go in the banter thread. Those ideas won't grow in this thread.

So in terms of putting fear into the player we've got:

- Enemies that are invisible until a flash of lightning

- Enemies that swallow you whole - leading into fish and rising water areas

- Enemies that constantly track you in the rain

And other types of changed behaviour:

- Enemies that have new attacks with collected water

- Altered motion for enemies in the rain

- Enemies trying to hide from the rain

- Electricty attacks travelling through wet platforms

- Fish-enemies initially stranded and weak, that become a threat when the water level rises

One more idea. Assume the rain is very, very light, and the raindrops are long or clear enough to observe individually. You could implement enemies that react to being hit by single raindrops. What that reaction is could be anything: redirect the water towards the player, become invincible, fire an attack, die, malfunction/motion response, kill another enemy, etc.

You could play with the number of enemies, or the density of the rain. Once the player has seen how it works, start introducing more enemies until the missing raindrops are a factor the player is sure to be considering. Then you can start teasing with sporadic heavy rain.