Designing the new enemy interactions

We've had this conversation a bunch in class but I haven't put up our conversations onto my blog. I think it's time to reflect upon what we've been thinking. 

Overall, I believe that new player experiences help make a game fun. When players experience something new and surprising, they get this rush of exploration and difficulty. It is a new scenario to deal with and it's a surprise from the norm. Players love this kind of thing.

Due to art problems/complications, we scoped out a lot of our special sequences and interactions. After the cuts, we had a very basic set of enemies and a very basic set of interactions with those enemies. Players had very little diversity in what they experienced in the game. They would most likely get bored with their attack set and the enemy interactions. 

To add to our diversity in player experiences we added functionality to our current models:

• Standard Enemy - Shield Attack. A new version of the standard unit has a shield. This gives the uppercut attack a purpose. This also gives a moment when the standard attack doesn't work on standard enemies. This mixes things up a bit and it helps change how the player is attacking. 
• Ranged Enemy - Pogo attack. Our original ranged unit was a stationary unit. This made sense in earlier builds of the game but it didn't make much sense when using the brawler mechanic. For long walking sequences, the stationary unit works but for the action segments we needed a new way of interacting with the ranged enemy. The ranged unit uses its missile launch to pogo around the map. This is a brand new experience and forces the player to play in a new way. 
• Heavy Enemy - Area of Effect attack. From the first encounters with the heavy enemy, the player realizes that they have to attack from behind. The area of effect attack forces the player away and gives the heavy unit unpredictable behavior. The first time the player's strategy is countered will be a good experience.