Hey there! Our newest build is now out and we've gotten some very insightful feedback that'll help us a lot in making the game better. In fact we have received a lot of very positive feedback for the enemies, so I am excitingly sharing my design process around creating these enemies.

Several months ago the team and I got together to brainstorm many ideas for enemies, There is a lot that goes into designing the characters, however to simplify the process for myself I only committed to incorporating my own 2 major principles. Adapting it to the game and fitting it in the environment. Adapting to the game means that the character design should be able to incorporate the game's main mechanics or main combat mechanics into the main enemy visual design. This meant for use, creating a design that must be able to clearly use attacks that the player must jump over or dash under. A lot of designs were shared around that had very small leg room to allow mechanics to fit in that were unfortunately scrapped or unused. Adapting it to the game also meant that creating a design that we could easily changed the costume of without as much work would allow us to create variety easily. Animations were also a big influence on design. Thinking of how the enemies attacks, movement and silhouette is vital in making an enemy not only distinguishable, but also readable and realistic.

Designing enemies that would fit the world is a fun process. The original concepts we came up with did not include the Japanese spirit/Yokai themed designs as we wanted to just test out our creative freedom with the base designs. Also I wanted to do a bit more research on different aspects of the designs before fully committing to a design. The Melee enemy drew designs from the yokai Oni, using the fluff on the neck as well as spikes taken from horns that Oni typically have. The ranged enemy takes inspirations from two different Yokai the Chochin Obake and a more obscure Yokai named Chochin-Kozo. The Chochin Kozo is a Yokai that looks like a child that appears on rainy days, and it's main purpose is simply to frighten people before retreating. This very much fit the ranged enemy as they try to escape the player when they get too close.  The skulls also play a huge importance of the enemies and NPCs alike though not to spoil future content I will leave that post for another day. Personally I am not finished with these designs as I think there are a lot I can still add onto the enemies, though for now they have been more satisfying for the build.

The boss is currently in WIP however we want to share some progress as well as some early designs and concepts

Our main goal is to create enemies that will fit the environment and develop interesting designs that not only look cool but also have cultural significance to the land we are inspired by. Next week we hope to show some environment design and share some progress on the assets as well.