The Intersection of Enemy and Level Design
Source: Mike Stout’s Blog, Chaotic Stupid
This Week in Game Development
I’m still working on The Last Humble-Bee!
While working on prototyping levels, I recalled a series of articles written by Mike Stout, an experienced designer who worked on the Ratchet & Clank, Resistance, and Skylanders franchises.
In this serious of articles (dubbed “Trinity”), Mike talks about how he thinks while designing a game, and covers topics ranging like game mechanics, intensity ramps, and much more. One particular article that came to the forefront of my mind was this one:
Essentially, Mike creates example enemy and terrain “archtypes”, and explains that these archtypes serve as “representatives of the extremes of your design space, work[ing] together to create a series of Questions and Tools that you can ramp up in difficulty over the course of a Path.”
What an interesting way to think about game/level design! I think this is a very practical way to build levels/paths for the player to walk: utilizing enemies and terrain types to ask interesting “questions” to the player.
Here were Mike’s enemy archtypes (which I have seen variations of in nearly every combat-focused video game I’ve played).
Swarmer – Low Health, Low Damage, Close Range
Heavy – High Health, High Damage, Far Range
Far – Low Health, High Damage, Far Range
Near – High Health, Low Damage, Close Range
And terrain Archtypes:
Flat
Gap
Ledge
Cover
I love it! In fact, I love it so much I’ll borrow Mike’s framework for enemy/level setups for my own game, The Last Humble-Bee. I already had a “Swarmer” enemy archtype with these assassin enemies:
Low Health, High Speed, Low Range, Directly Attack
And this “Near” enemy archtype with this hopping sorcerer enemy:
High Health, Low Speed, Low Range, Indirectly Attack
So I’ve now included this “Far” enemy archtype that can throw/lob/spit bombs at the player:
Low Health, No Speed, High Range, Indirectly Attack
And I’ve also included this other “Far” enemy archtype that shoots directly at the player (different than the previous enemy type that had an “indirect” means of attacking from afar. An archer enemy subtype:
Low Health, No Speed, High Range, Directly Attack
I may add a “Tank” enemy archtype as a final prototype enemy; however, with these enemy archtypes, I can now keep moving forward with prototyping levels and mix-and-match my terrain with enemies and ask the player more interesting questions while they play. I think this will help me have tools to answer my own questions like, “Where should I place this ledge or that hill?” or, “I want the player to feel overwhelmed in this part of the map, how can I do that?”. Level-design and enemy-design really go hand-in-hand, I suppose!!
Till next time!
-Jacob
Note: As always, special shout out to Penusbmic for the enemy sprites above. They sell their art on itch.io in awesome asset packs that allow indie developers like me to purchase and use assets (and simply add their names to the credits of my game upon release).