Enemies First Look

Agent Blue is stealth centric game and as with any stealth game there needs to be a diverse set of enemies to create a rounded set of challenges. Regular levels in Agent Blue are on a sort of timer before Goons from other zones start showing up and systematically sweeping the entire level forcing the player to keep moving. If an enemy sees or bumps into the player they set off an alert which brings other enemies running.Enemies each have their own unique niche/job such that by themselves they are easy to deal with but in conjuction are dangerous. The general niches for enemies are as follows; forcing the player to keep moving, forcing the player to escape from a space, and forcing the player to take a measured thoughtful approach. At this point we have four types of enemies who together build and keep the players pressure up.

VRoomba is the simplest enemy which scours the level for the player so that it can alert its allies. They specialize in forcing players to move out of the corridors and into the more interesting rooms. VRoombas are predictable and blind but fast, catching the unwary or distracted and alerting their brethren to come finish off the player.

Orbs are a standardized damage dealer who patrol a route and deal high damage to players caught in rooms with them. Orbs do not hunt the player and will pass them by in the corridors if they don't bump into them. This helps make rooms more dangerous as many enemies can be especially deadly in corridors. In general terms this means that orbs force the player to move and plan their entrance into rooms in a measured fashion.

Trashcans specialize in hunting the player to the exclusion of all else. They wander around and rely entirely on sound to detect players to zero in on them. Trashcans serve as the main deterrent to players acting too brashly, forcing them to keep moving from any point where they made noise and plan their noisy actions, such as running or shooting, carefully.

Goons are a jack of all trades and perform some of every function. They can hunt the player to force them to move and force them to escape. By fulfilling most functions Goons are a safe bet to up the difficulty with and are added in circumstances such as when the level timer has ticked along sufficiently.

While we may be adding to the enemy set in the future we are being very conscious of keeping our enemies distinct and interesting which means keeping the number of types down.