Arker
Design document for NRR Arker Enemy
Info
General
The Arker is a new enemy introduced in Level Two, designed as a formidable, long-range tank. It boasts a powerful arsenal, raining down electric missiles and projectiles on players. Like other Level Two enemies, its design incorporates the level's distinct shapes and forms, making it appear as if it just emerged directly from the wall.
The Arker is another enemy that tries to restrict player movement, making it harder for you to weave around its projectiles. Its pylons boost its own attacks, making things extremely tough if you get caught in its electric trap.
Character Aspects
The Arker enemy stands on four spider-like legs, lifting itself when firing. All its movements are mapped with sound effects, giving it a creepy, quick-legged feel. Visually, it remains simple with a basic walk cycle in a blend space, an idle, and a shoot animation. A new improvement for this enemy is its exclusive use of audio with attenuation; this means its sounds are played in a 3D space, affected by the player's proximity. The Arker features a general machine-like hum and retro computer beeping that players can hear when nearby. A mechanical hum, controlled by movement speed and paired with walk animation sound effects, gives the impression that it uses motors and power for its strides.
Attacks
Projectiles
Projectile Charge
To alert players of an impending attack, the Arker employs a charge behaviour right before it fires. This gives players crucial time to dodge or prepare for incoming projectiles. During this charge, the Arker spawns an electric whirlwind that intensifies over a second or two, making it look like it's drawing in energy for its next barrage. This visual cue is accompanied by a charging sound effect.
Shooting
After the Arker charges its primary attack, it unleashes a rapid array of small, quick electric projectiles from its main nozzle, making them hard for the player to avoid. These projectiles also bounce off walls, requiring players to watch for attacks from behind. If a projectile hits an electric pylon wall set up by the Arker (referenced later), it gains significant power with each bounce. This power increase is accompanied by a particle effect at the bounce location, an increase in the projectile's own particle effect spawn speed and power, and a dynamic sound effect that changes with the power level. Each bounce gives the projectile more speed and damage. The projectiles can bounce off most static objects within the rooms, but they will cease bouncing after four impacts.
When the Arker fires, a muzzle effect and a randomised pitch sound effect are spawned from its main barrel at the projectiles' exit, visually and audibly signalling the enemy's attack.
The Arker currently uses two projectile attack behaviours. One involves firing a simple set of three projectiles quickly and consistently. While this can be tough to dodge up close, it's easier from a distance. This attack also works very well with weapons that can deflect projectiles back at the enemy.
The second attack pattern is more complex. It launches two shots at the player with consistent, short timing. It then moves to a nearby random location and unleashes four to five shots with randomised timing. The intention is for players to learn that this specific movement between the two sets of shots signals an upcoming barrage that will be very difficult to dodge.
Missiles
Charging
To prepare players for an incoming attack, the Arker has a secondary charge that occurs before its secondary attack missiles are fired. This gives players time to get ready before the Arker begins its area-locking attack. During this charge, the Arker's other muzzles at the top start to glow, intensifying over a second or two. This makes it look like it's gathering energy for the next attack. This visual cue is accompanied by a charging sound effect that increases in pitch and volume with the charge level.
Once the charge is complete, small particle effects appear on those same muzzles, making it look like the charged sections of the Arker are now at full power, even showing static shocks of electricity as it's ready to attack. This is also accompanied by a sound effect.
Shooting
After its charge sequence, the Arker can fire missiles from each of its smaller nozzles. There's a slight delay between each shot, allowing the missiles to land and arc at different times, which helps them track the player more effectively. This delay also makes it easier to spawn distinct particle and sound effects on each muzzle, creating the impression of a continuous barrage rather than a single large effect. As each missile fires, a muzzle particle effect appears on its nozzle, accompanied by a randomised pitched sound.
These missiles behave like other arcing projectiles, calculating their own up-and-down trajectory instead of using standard projectile movement. Each missile is a particle effect with a movement sound that changes in pitch and volume, enhancing its vertical motion. The missiles target the player's location but add a random spread around it, aiming to surround the player rather than hit a precise spot. When a missile strikes the ground, it spawns an electric pylon (referenced later) and notifies the Arker to manage the pylon walls. However, if a missile hits ground that cannot support pylons, or a wall, it will not spawn a pylon.
Similar to other arcing projectiles, the Arker missiles utilise a ground target that stays beneath them and increases in size with distance to the ground. This provides players with a crucial visual cue, allowing them to anticipate where the missiles will land and prepare accordingly.
The Arker currently has two secondary attack behaviours. The first involves launching its missiles at the player and then moving to a random location. While this might seem short, it allows the Arker to quickly transition to other attacks. Having this short duration also means that any projectiles fired shortly after will have time to bounce off the pylon walls (referenced later) before they disappear.
The second attack pattern is more complex. The Arker fires its missiles toward the player and then immediately charges into a primary projectile attack. This attack is designed to be the most lethal, as it gives the player very little time to prepare for both assaults, and there's a very high chance that the projectiles launched in the second phase will bounce off walls and strike the player.
Pylons
The Arker pylons are a new, challenging hazard in the game. When an Arker missile hits the ground, it triggers an explosion particle effect and a randomised-pitch sound effect, revealing a pylon now attached to the ground. Once all missiles have landed and the last one has contacted its Arker owner, the pylon electric wall can activate. If one or more missiles fail to land or hit an unsupported area, the electric wall setup fails, and all pylons will shortly fade out as all four are needed for correct operation.
However, if all missiles land in order, each pylon activates with a particle effect and a sound effect, with its pitch determined by its activation order, creating a progressive activation sound. Once a pylon is active, it spawns an electric wall actor between itself and the next pylon in sequence, establishing collisions, a particle effect, and a general generator hum attached to the wall. The final pylon does not spawn an electric wall between the fourth and first pylons. This design choice aims to surround the player with electric walls that projectiles can interact with effectively, rather than trapping the player in an inescapable section where the Arker cannot fire into.
The Arker's electric walls serve to protect it by blocking all player projectiles. If a player fires anything at these walls, the projectile will be destroyed, accompanied by a particle effect showing the wall zapping it and a randomised-pitch sound effect. However, if the Arker fires its own projectiles into the electric walls, they will bounce off, gaining speed and power (as referenced above).
If the player walks into the electric walls, they will be knocked back and take a small amount of damage. This is visually represented by a particle effect at the impact location, with sparks flying towards the player, and accompanied by a localised randomised pitch sound effect.
To prevent the Pylon walls from blocking the player's path, players must destroy the Pylons themselves. When players shoot or attack a pylon, it takes damage, which is visually indicated by the pylon flashing white, similar to how enemies show damage. If a player reduces a pylon's health to zero, that pylon and its accompanying electric wall will be destroyed, marked by an electric explosion particle effect as the pylon disappears. They also have a long lifespan, so if players don't destroy them, they will all eventually fade out.
When a pylon is destroyed, it checks other pylons connected to it. If a pylon solely supports two walls, destroying it will remove both walls and any pylons that no longer have other connections. This means that destroying the second or third pylons can dismantle more of the collective wall than destroying the first or fourth.
Enemy Type
The Arker functions as a zone-controlling heavy attacker, assisting other enemies in pursuing the player. Lacking melee capabilities, it is vulnerable to close-range assaults. While other Level Two enemies might aggressively chase the player, the Arker is designed to provide covering fire from medium range and deploy special attacks that pose significant challenges, acting as an all-rounder that delivers a greater challenge than most other enemies.
The Arker is also an excellent match-up against the sword. Since the Arker fires many smaller projectiles, it's easier for the player to weave through them and deflect as many as possible, even using the electric walls to their advantage. Projectiles can be deflected back at the Arker even if they have just bounced off an electric wall. However, a new risk with this enemy is that deflected projectiles can then hit a wall and become quicker and more damaging to the player, so deflection around the electric walls has to be very precise.
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