Reaction Designed Enemies

Following on from my previous post about creating enemies and what fun it is. I have just created a new one and once more enjoyed the process.

I have no idea if I will be getting any new graphics for my enemies, so I am working on keeping the number of new enemy images to a minimum by re-using one I already have. So previously I reused the Spiky ball and simply colored it a little different, and of course gave it different flight characteristics. I still need more enemy types for Kal to battle past and I also wanted something different, something that would make the player react when he first encounters the enemy. Such initial reaction are hard to earn, but even harder to keep as once an enemy has been seen once it is usually known and turns into 'boring'.. 'never have to think about that enemy again..'. Which I myself as a player can find boring too.

So I decided I wanted to create an enemy that makes a player react, and then has a surprise up it's sleeve, or maybe two :)
This new ones code name is Blades02 and here I will describe what it does and how I hope it will be received y players.

There are several stages to Blades02 all with a specific goal in mind.
Stage1:
 The Hovver Blade appears on the right hand side of the screen higher up than all previous enemies, as if he has appeared over there heads. He fades in over approximately a second and of course there is a sound to compliment this appearance. What I hope to get from this is a player to wonder what the heck that think is gonna do. Also enemies above a player tend to make ya nervous, I hope this works to some degree.
Stage2:
 The Blade disappears by fading down over about 1/2 a second. This should make the player wonder even more what this enemy is up to and start some anticipation.
Stage3:
 Now the Blade has faded to approximately 25% transparency it flys towards Kal at high velocity. Hopefully the player will initially react by jumping or sliding or maybe with an attack, so long as that anticipation has turned to fear for Kals health.
Stage4:
 The Blade actually stops right in front of Kal and fades in to fully solid. It just happens to have stopped right in kicking and punching position (well whaddya know, that was lucky!). This is where the player once again wonders what the Blade is up to, but also is now given their chance to disable it with a swift kick or punch. Killing this enemy will be worth approximately 100 points.
Stage5:
 If the Blade is not killed, after about 1 second it will choose to attack Kal. This it does by flying into his legs, OR flying up and into Kals head. This is a 50/50 random event. I am hoping that the first time the player sees the Blade he will believe that is all it does. Then some random encounter later he will discover ti has more than one option! This will make the player have a choice to either jump OR slide past this enemy, and some quick thinking can earn the player a lot of points, around 1000 for a dodge.

As you can see, this is a multi-phase enemy, and the player will make judgements that will perhaps be wrong, and with it's stealth and threatening and also patient nature I am hoping to surprise players at least a few times.

I just realised I should get some video of this in action. That will come soon :)

Laters
Da Voodoochief