Hello nerds! This devlog is going to be a little different, and show you a bit behind the scenes at how I started making the designs of my enemy cast for The Descent! 

Let's start first with this creature I call the Darkling!

This little gremlin of a monster was actually the first enemy I crafted for the game, and I wanted to get a distinct feel for what I knew would be the "default" enemy for most situations. What I made actually looks kinda cute, so it's somewhat sad you have to kill it, but I assure you it is a blood-thirsty monster. It's ears were a big decision though, as originally, it would only attack when it heard you close. To be fair, that was before the game changed in directions, but I decided to stick with the design anyways.

Next up, we have the Goop!

This Goop has a very simple beginning. One day, while I was bored, I started playing Tower Madness 2 on my phone. In said game, there's an alien blob thing that splits into smaller blobs upon death. I thought, "wow, that's really cool," and totally didn't steal the idea for myself. Since this monster is canonically a blob of Darkling flesh, I wanted it to feel way bouncier than anything else in the game, so I even changed up how I animate. Instead of my usual "base model then slight shifts" strategy to animation, I just drew an entire frame with color, then drew another from complete and total scratch, taking care to think of it as a completely new blob. I think it was effective.

Up next, we have the Turret!

This was another monster that was originally designed for a different game style, but I kept his design too. It's mouth (yes, that hole at the top) spews out acid-covered flesh, and boy does it enjoy it's job! It also has tiny octopus-like legs, so it can scurry about when needed. 

And lastly, my personal favorite, the Metal Shell!

The Metal Shell is a Darkling that fused with metallic parts left behind by the humans. It now uses that metal as a shield whenever it feels in danger (i.e. close to the player.)  My idea with this one was to force the player to either get up close to an enemy, or stay far away from an enemy, in order to kill them more effectively. Once I had the general idea of a shell that could turn on and off, I realized what I should do, and so I based it off of a flower blooming. Why a flower? Well...no reason, really, I just thought of flowers when it came to shields I guess.

And that's all of the enemies, at least for now. I hope you all enjoyed this look at The Descent's enemies!