What actually makes a good enemy
a summary and telling of my own experience in response to George Fan’s talk “Make your enemies actually different”
So this week I would like to talk about a GDC talk/panel in 2017 titled “Rules of the Game: Five Techniques from Quite Inventive Designers” and more specifically George Fan’s talk titled “Make you enemies actually different”. Here he details the do’s and don’ts of good enemy design littered with examples throughout, I here I am going to summarise the talk alongside bring my own examples and experience into the matter, Enjoy.
George’s Talk begins with the title Make your enemies actually different with extra emphasis on the actually, by this he means make it, so each enemy is tackled differently by the player in order to spice up the game and make it mire interesting and more fun. Games need variety or players feel like they’ve just fought the same enemy over and over again throughout the entire game, George emphasises this through the player “brain-o-vision” where inside the players mind enemies that are too similar get clumped together as basically the same due to the fact they interact with the player in virtually the same way.
Next, he brings up what not to do when creating variety and am actual good set of enemies. First different look same function, where enemies that behave identically however have a different look or different colour palette. His example was in super Mario where one of the fishes where recoloured later in the game however behaved the same way gets stored inside the players brain as the same enemy. Another don’t is small changes like damage or hp values as variation that minuscule is likely to be ignored by players and clumped together with enemies with the fighting style. These are very good points as I have played many games where they rehash the same enemy from earlier in the game, slap a new coat of paint on him and increase his damage and health however you fight him exactly how you used too earlier in the game.
Next, he goes through what to do to create actual variation and actually good enemies and lists these through attributes of differentiation. First attribute is movement, being how the enemy moves around for example he mentions the Koopas from Mario and the differences between the grounded on the flying ones and the red flying ones each having a distinct movement pattern for Mario to combat/utilise, however movement patterns that are too similar again get clumped together as the same by players such as a sharp zig zag pattern and a rounded zig zag pattern end up being too similar. The next attribute is priority such as a healer enemy or a strong archer makes the player prioritise killing them first so killing the rest I easier, however too many priority enemies can again lead players roping them together as the “kill first” enemies. A good way to spice it up is through “kill last” enemies such as an enemy that gets powered up as it’s damaged making players act differently when they are involved in the battle. Next is timing for example an enemy who is strong at certain times and vulnerable at others for example the piranha plant in Mario. Up next is range so in a game focused on close range combat having ranged enemies and vice versa for games focused on range can help bring more variety to the gameplay loop.
Enemies that counter the player is another great attribute to force players to act differently for example the spiny enemy in Mario forces players to act differently when encountered cutting the general repetition of gameplay. Also having the player options to counter enemies again makes the player act differently in a satisfying way, using a certain tool to take out an otherwise tough enemy is always a good feeling. Lastly attention, commonly seen as telegraphed attacks that draw the players attention to that enemy to dodge or counter that specific enemy for example an enemy in the corner starts charging a power shot making the player look at the enemy and dodge.
Ok! Now for my own experience and a game that ticks most if not all these boxes in my opinion. This game would be the borderlands series specifically borderlands 2. This game has one of the best enemy design for a shoot that I’ve seen so lets break it down into the beforementioned attributes firstly movement, enemies in the game come in all shapes and sizes when it comes to their movement standard bandit and solider type enemies tend to keep their distance and stay behind cover whereas psycho and other melee units who are more agile and aren’t afraid to chase the player, flying enemies like Rakk circle around then swoop, beefer enemies walk toward you at a slower pace and are less likely to take cover or dodge, so on and so forth. Priority borderlands goes about priority in a couple of ways firstly is through size, the bigger the enemy, the stronger it is, the faster you want to kill it secondly through uniqueness or how it strays away from the traditional enemy for example a shield/repair surveyor is a little plane like robot that shields/repairs it’s fellow robots with a bright beam connecting the two combined with a unique sound it draws player to pick it off first to make their lives a little easier. Another example of priority is the bomber/suicide enemies who run at the player holding a grenade holding a grenade yelling and screaming in the process grabbing the attention of the player otherwise he isn’t the only one going to go boom.
Thirdly is timing this is present however not as common due to the nature of the game, for example the ion loader enemies create a electrical shield that blocks all damage from the outside forcing players to wait it out or get close for in risk of taking extra damage, another example is during the Handsome Jack boss fight he turns himself invisible making him hard to hit before going back to visible. Next up is range as touched upon in movement enemies come in many forms of range from classic mid-range bandits to close range psychos to long ranged snipers and everything in between. Here is where borderlands shines with it’s enemy design, Enemies that counter players and player tools that counter enemies the game works around the key concept of elements being fire beats flesh, shock beats shield, corrosive beats Armor being the main three besides standard, explosive and slag. This makes players change the types of weapons they are using to counter specific enemies so as fire is strong against flesh its weak against shield and armour making the player switch to a shock or corrosive weapon to deal with the enemy, and to expand upon that some enemies are completely immune to certain damage types a good example of this is during the fight against Bloodwing where he switches elements multiple times becoming immune to the specific element he currently is. And lastly is attention most present during boss fights where you can see the boss winding up for a big swipe and a giant laser shot also to bring up the suicide enemies again just before they blow up they stick their hand in the air telegraphing the incoming explosion.
So that was ”Make you enemies actually different” and what I thought was a game that ticked off all the boxes George had listed, it was a very interesting watch and really shows how simple differentiation can really better your game, I would have liked to bring up a game that did it poorly however I’ll save that for another day as once again I got a bit too carried away.
