Dolls — early sketches
Added 2018-08-08 05:44:04 +0000 UTCDoodles during the surgery trip!! And a bit of backstory:
A problem that quickly arose from Puro's general gameplay was the relationship between enemies and their respective items. In the earliest iterations of the game, Puro wasn't meant to be able to get items from enemies at all, instead obtaining them from literal piles of rusty swords and other weapons — a rather macabre trace of previous adventurers attempting to brave the factory long before she did. This turned out to be a thing we in the game industry refer to as "not fun" and I quickly moved towards alternatives.
Enemies turning into weapons came to mind pretty quickly, such as the Drifter, an enemy resembling a small hot air balloon with blades that deflates and transforms into a mace. However, creating enemies that do this, from both a design and technical perspective, is very difficult to do! (The Drifter and one or two other transforming enemies will remain in the game, for reasons I'll explain later).
Thus, I needed enemies that simply carried weapons. Making them humanoid seemed like the most obvious option, but giving them that "ancient" look proved difficult. My earliest attempts felt too futuristic or just "robot with tribal mask."
I took a step back, and asked myself what would appear servile, but still humanoid. The answer was puppets. Dolls! And now they're my favorite enemies oops
