Wave Ninja

This is a prototype for a top down "shooter" where you kill your enemies by dashing into them. I was inspired by the mechanic in 3D Sonic games where you can dash through a line of rings. My first version of this game was a more direct copy of that, where upon dashing you character is redirected to the nearest enemy until there are no more nearby. This turned out to be very janky and unpredictable, since groups of enemies that formed organically were not as well behaved as Sonic ring patterns.

Instead, I had the dash extend itself upon touching and killing an enemy. With this change, it became clear that the fun part of this game was lining up large groups of enemies and bowling right through them. So I designed the enemy movement to complement this. Enemies will slow down within a certain radius of the player, getting even slower as they get closer. This creates big, satisfying groups of enemies within the range of the player's dash. When the dash ends, enemies are pushed back by shockwaves, which gives the player some breathing room, adds some impact to the dash, and lines up the player for another dash into the dispersed enemies.

Right now the goal is just a score threshold, with enemies spawning randomly in a few different configurations. But I envision this game with predefined waves of enemies. Additionally, I need to add graphics, music, and sound effects. I also would like to add more enemy types and terrain/objects that interact with the dash (for example grind rails that your dash will follow). I also need to tweak some of the dash parameters to make sure the player doesn't absentmindedly run into enemies after the dash ends (this happened even with the dash shockwave).

The theming on this project is limited based on my novice art skills and whatever assets/sprites I can find. I initially envisioned the main character as a ninja with a tsunami dash, and the pacing/crash radius of the dash was tuned with that in mind. But I may switch this to spaceships, with a hyperspeed dash with faster timing.

Attributions:

Danger Icon: Alert icons created by Freepik - Flaticon