#hell riders

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Finally we reached in development the last boss of the MVP to build- Belphegor. Given they are the last opponent in the game, we need ot make sure they bring on the pain.

Idea vs Design

During my designing of Bel, something rather strange happened- During the spriting process I hit a brick wall rather early. Not the most dastardly of stops but it was the problem that I couldn't get Bel's design to work with my spriting style. This lead to what Fullerton would describe as an "idea vs design". converting something free like an idea into something as detailed and planned out as a design. In the end, I needed to improvise and ended up changing Bel into a woman as it fitted how my spriting was ending up

What was in my head vs what I ended up with (art on left from Forgotten Realms Wiki https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Bel#Gallery)

Phase 1

The first phase he sits upon his throne behind a forcefield while countless turrets and minions attack.

Bel was hands-down the most complicated enemy I had to sprite up for the game, totalling to 42 images for her animations, plus an additional 27 images for her throne, turrets, barrier, attack projectiles, and terrain. This meant I had to make 69 sprites for this phase alone.

The following were the attacks I designed for Bel:

Kiss of Fire

Belphegor sends out a kiss that manifests into a blazing heart that explodes into a barrage of projectiles that home into the player.

The original plan for this attack was that Bel would hurl a firball at the player that would do the same thing but given the change in Bel's design, I decided to have a little fun and change the attack into a blazing explosive heart she smooches towards you.

Lava Raise

Bel raises her hand, causing three pillars of flame to erupt from the ground beneath the player in fixed intervals

This move was animated for but not implemented in the final version as Sage could not get it to work. Luckily enough she has enough in her kit that even without this move she still functions nicely as a boss.

Sword Swing

Bel swings her sword after a brief windup

Bel, much like other complex enemies, has a threat level, at the highest value of this threat level, Bel lets loose a great swing from her sword- resulting in a slash that covers a large portion of the screen.

Turrets

Hugging the right wall are four turrets that let out bullets towards the player. Destroying all four of these turrets disables Bel's force field and makes her vulnerable to attacks.

Retaliation

This attack occurs upon recovering from her stunned state which happens when enough turrets are destroyed. In this attack, she performed the slash attack again and respawns all slain turrets.

Phase 2?

Unfortunately for development, me and the team realized that there wouldn't be enough time to implement Bel in with both phases. Given they won't make it into the game, here's one animation I had for it

Hell Wasps

Horse-sized wasps that fly onto the screen, and after a brief pause, charge directly towards the player. Upon collision, they return back to the right side of the screen and repeat the process until they kill or are killed.

Compared to their initial sprites made for the MVP document, I have given them quite the glowup. Granted, the hell wasp was probably I one of the few that was very much in a work in progress state when I made the MVP document, so them getting such an overhaul visually makes sense.

Before:

After:

This new look was a lot better than what I had before and had a lot more detail that the original was missing. Coding on the enemy from what I heard about from Sage was a bit of a mess, something I think he would be describing in his blog (hopefully)

Animating the wasp wasn't too difficult, and ended up totalling to 12 images- the same amount as the boss Sibriex which is kind of funny when you think about it.

Imps

Simple enemies that fly onto the screen, shoot three bullets in a row at the player, and fly off the screen.

I actually forgot to mention an enemy so I'll bring them up here, woops! Here's how they went.

The imps were among the first of the enemies to be sprited out as shown by the MVP document having their final form in it. They totalled to 9 images made for them.

Diablo Engine The largest and most powerful of the standard enemies, they possess the most weapons, including a flamethrower that is just a rapid spray of bullets in a wave pattern, a laser cannon that fires a laser directly in front of them that cannot be stopped by any means, and explosive shots that unleash a spray of bullets in all directions upon reaching a certain distance.

The last of the basic enemies to be sprited, the diablo engine totalled to 28 images made for its animations, and was another enemy I fully coded, so I'll go into some detail with its attacks.

Basics

The Diablo Engine was designed to serve as a "miniboss"- an enemy that was a boss fight in its own right, as such it sports the most attacks out of any basic enemy and fights similarly to the Soul Grinder. Much like Sibriex and the tormentor, the diablo engine utilized the threat system, rolling that same d6+Threat to choose its attack on any given cycle.

Attack 1: Flamethrower

The most basic attack, the diablo engine fired a snaking volley of bullets towards the player that moved in an 'S' pattern.

Attack 2: Laser

Taking inspiration (chapter 1, fullerton) from the Soul Grinder, the Diablo Engine too has a screenwide laser attack. Some people would call this lazy for making an enemy do the exact same move as a boss, but I like to think of it as an admission that the player is getting more skilled- skilled enough that even the what served as bosses earlier in the game can now be encountered as basic enemies. This

This attack occurs halfway through its threat value at results 6-8.

Attack 3: Charge

With most of the results fixed up with plans on fixing up the Health Bar later, we moved on to implementing more enemies

Damned Spirit

Exclusive to level 2, these enemies jump out of the water from telegraphed puddles in line with the player’s X coordinates and attempt to collide with the player. When they do, they attach for a brief duration, applying a downward force. If too much downward force is applied to the player, they die instantly as they are dragged into the damned waters.

While originally planned only for level 2, the spirits were implemented into level 3. To signify collision with the player, the spirits deleted themselves and spawned a new number of spirits that orbited around the player based on a new variable we added to the player exclusively for this enemy.

The spirit totalled to three frames of animation.

Infernal Skiff

Exclusive to level 2, these hell boats skim across the water and let loose bombs directly upward that explode into bursts of bullets.