As I slowly flesh out the basic enemy logic, I realise how much we ascribe meaning to very simple behaviours. For instance, when an enemy's health drops below thirty percent, it will run away. Simple, right? But I can't tell you how many times in testing the glee I felt when chasing the little guy down and executing it as it scrabbled against a wall. It felt like I was dominating, turning the tables, becoming the aggressor, and all because of a few lines of code. To feel like an enemy is scared of you is something I haven't encountered much in games. Half-Life 2 really nailed that balance. The Combine would react like real enemies, running away while frantically radioing for backup, only for you to plant a bullet in the back of their head. I hope I can design enough of these behaviours to give the illusion of complexity.

The first boss I've made for the game is rather lacklustre, for good reason. It fires bursts of rockets after it sees you, doing so until either you or it dies. I need players to have a sense of progression, and if I put all of my effort into the first few bosses, the rest will seem boring. I desperately need to figure out animation for telegraphing purposes, but I just haven't put in the time to learn Mecanim.

In other news, I've doubled the room size and made the lights four times brighter. This has helped the trapped feeling you get from tiny, dim rooms. The textures are still bugged in the web build, but it's completely playable and smoother than ever: https://solokeh.itch.io/the-void-2d

The downloadable version is also available if you prefer, it's attached to this post.

That's all for now, please tell me what you think if you play the game.