Hi!
This week is special! I’ve started to work on the enemies for an upcoming title. I love this kind of work because I can actually create something that moves and iteracts with the player in the game. Ofcourse for placing the enemy in the level I need to create an editor script so that the level designers have an easier time implementing the enemy in different situations.
Enemies are fun to work on because I get to touch a lot of aspects of development. Animation, physics, collisions, movement, particles, editor-scripts, and the player. The animations need to transition fluently, this was somewhat challenging because of the way the enemy travels and how the designers want the enemy to face a certain direction in relation to the camera. So I had to work together with Gerre (animations) to think of the best way to tackle this issue. We figured the enemy needed an animation for all directions it moves in instead of me rotating it a lot. This makes it easier to use Unity’s automated transitions.
As always there was a code review and I got caught with my pants down. I used a lot of bools instead of creating states. I think if I had thought through the technical design of this enemy a little bit better I could have caught this beforehand.